Bliss Montage

This collection of eight short stories blends surrealist premises with grounded emotional realities, exploring immigration, abusive relationships, identity, and the tension between past and present selves.

In "Los Angeles," a woman lives in a gated mansion in the Hollywood Hills with her Husband, her two children, and her 100 ex-boyfriends. The Husband, whose speech is rendered as dollar sign symbols, bankrolls the narrator's days with her exes. Two ex-boyfriends matter most: Aaron, whom she loved, and Adam, who beat her. When Aaron announces he is leaving, she drives him to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), passing landmarks from their shared history. The exes gradually depart, and the back wing falls into disrepair. In the abandoned wing, the narrator discovers the Husband, aged and weeping. Police officers arrive looking for Adam, wanted for domestic assault. A chase begins when the children spot Adam; the narrator pursues him alone, but he leaps beyond her reach.

"Oranges" follows an unnamed woman who spots her abusive ex-boyfriend Adam on the street and shadows him across the city. She recalls a café meeting where Adam refused to ask for a replacement orange, a refusal emblematic of his avoidance of confrontation despite his cruelty to those closest to him. She follows him to a run-down apartment where he lives with a young woman named Beth. Talking her way inside, the narrator tells Beth that Adam has a documented history of abusing women. When Beth asks why she followed him, the narrator admits, "Sometimes I have a hard time believing what happened to me. What he did. And seeing him again makes me realize that it happened" (45). Adam jerks her place mat from the table, sending dishes crashing, and she is told to leave. In the moment before Beth sides with Adam, the narrator sees in his face an expression that is neither angry nor remorseful, just trapped.

In "G," Bea visits her best friend Bonnie on her last night in New York before moving to California. Bonnie gives her G, a now-rare drug that renders users invisible. They undress, take the pills, and cause mischief in the city. Flashbacks reveal their history: Both are children of Chinese immigrants, their friendship forged through their mothers. Bea's ex-boyfriend Levi helped her recover from G abuse and urged her to distance herself from Bonnie, who had grown possessive and critical of Bea's body. Bonnie also used G to slip into Levi's bed invisible and have sex with him while he believed she was Bea. As the drug wears off, Bonnie materializes but Bea does not; Bonnie reveals she deliberately gave Bea the larger dose. Back at the apartment, Bea's condition worsens: Water passes through her body and she cannot grip objects. Bonnie puts on Bea's clothes, recreates her old bedroom, and vows to care for Bea. With her last words, Bea says, "I do" (76).

"Yeti Lovemaking" follows a woman who, three months after a breakup, meets a man in a gray suit who reveals himself to be a yeti from the Himalayas, part of a population that learned to pass as human. His skin is lined with tiny incisors, and his pheromones cause temporary blindness. Interwoven are memories of the narrator's ex-boyfriend, a literature teacher who told her before a serious bike accident, "I never gave you my heart" (84). She agrees to the yeti's mating call. Months later, the ex-boyfriend phones to describe a dream about her. She tries to speak but produces only metallic sounds, her voice damaged. He asks her just to listen.

"Returning" follows a writer and her husband Peter to Garboza, his fictional home country, for the Morning Festival. The narrator wakes alone on the plane to find Peter has left without her, taking their passports. At the airport, an attendant reveals that Peter's Garbanese name is Petru. A flight attendant explains the festival: Participants are buried overnight and uncovered in the morning, hoping to transform, though not all survive. Flashbacks reveal the couple met on the literary circuit when both published debut novels. Peter proposed, driven by tradition and an immigrant imperative to build stability. During his absences, the narrator began an affair with Y, a college acquaintance. Peter discovered her journal entries about Y before their departure and insisted she still come. Without a passport, the narrator slips through an unguarded exit to the festival. In the morning, participants are uncovered, most emerging with healed ailments, though one does not survive. The narrator spots their suitcase beside a burial plot, rushes forward, and scoops earth away, uncovering Peter's face. His eyes open, blank and unfocused. She calls his name, first Peter, then Petru, searching for what has changed.

"Office Hours" centers on Marie, an assistant professor of Film and Media Studies who inherited her late college mentor's office. Before his death, the Professor showed Marie a passageway hidden behind an armoire in the closet. It leads to an outdoor clearing, always nighttime and warm, where a cup of coffee left years ago remains hot. Marie uses the space to smoke and explore a road that seems to have no end. She reflects on how the Professor cultivated their bond, making her feel like "the exception" (158). She teaches a course called The Disappearing Woman. Sean, a condescending colleague, discovers the passageway and rushes through. On the other side, he sees a figure he believes is Marie smoking with her back to him. He shouts, but when the figure turns, startled, her cigarette falls to the ground.

"Peking Duck," told across six sections, explores a Chinese immigrant mother-daughter relationship through food, language, and storytelling. A framing motif from Mark Salzman's memoir Iron and Silk recurs: A teacher claims his wife's Peking duck banquet as his own happiest moment, though he was not there. The narrator recounts arriving in the US at age seven, where her mother, a nanny in a Utah mansion, taught her English despite her own limited proficiency. In a graduate writing workshop, a classmate critiques the narrator's autobiographical story as "Asian minstrelsy" (178). Over dinner, the narrator's mother challenges her daughter's authority to write about experiences that belonged to the mother. The final section shifts to the mother's perspective, narrating the day a door-to-door salesman forced his way into the mansion and demanded she cook for him. When the homeowner returns and implicitly blames the mother, she refuses to clean up and decides she will not return. In the car, she reflects that her happiest moment was the idea of having a daughter who would understand her.

"Tomorrow," the final story, is set in a near-future America in decline, its cultural artifacts on loan to foreign museums. Eve, a pregnant government worker recently separated from her boyfriend and boss Ben, discovers her unborn baby's arm protruding from her body. A doctor explains this is a known complication, possibly linked to microplastics; the arm will grow outside the womb but remain underdeveloped. Ben arranges six months of leave on the condition she returns. Eve travels to her unnamed birth country, staying with a great-aunt. The country has banned American businesses and English, yet America's influence persists in everyday infrastructure. One night, the aunt sees the baby arm and recoils. An arm shoots from the darkened hallway, grabs Eve by the neck, and a voice commands her to leave. Eve resolves to return to the US, where her child will be the first in the family born an American citizen. At the airport, she watches an American couple melt down after missing their flight. Eve feels a contraction, and the baby arm flails. The plane taxis away.