You told me about your grandfather, how he kept

forgetting his name and trying to break out of the

nursing home. You said you always mean to visit him

but somehow never do. You held up a cigarette and

watched it degenerate into ash and smoke.

How to Write an Emotionally Resonant Werewolf Novel by Alex Miller is a short story collection written during the tumultuous years following global financial crisis. Each story, in all its grit, gives us humanity at its weakest, its most tired, its most determined. We fold shirts for minimum wage at the mall, scrape together rent money from tips earned waiting tables, stay up until 3 a.m. playing video games, skip school, skip work, smoke cigarettes, watch resignedly as our nation marches to war, cheat on the people we love, linger at night on social media, and find ourselves suddenly alone and at peace, standing on a hilltop with birds.