Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

This short story collection contains 18 pieces that vary widely in length and format. Linked by a preoccupation with the difficulty of romantic connection, the stories employ formats including Craigslist posts, board game instructions, a dog's interior monologue, and rhyming verse to explore how people fail, hurt, and occasionally find one another.

The collection opens with "Salted Circus Cashews, Swear to God," a parable in which a woman on a date is offered a can of cashews whose label contains an increasingly desperate plea to trust that no fake snake lurks inside, concluding that "this time is different" (4). Whether she opens the can remains unresolved.

"A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion" is narrated by Peter, a quarry worker planning a wedding with his fiancée, Dorothy, in a world where absurd rituals, such as goat sacrifices to the Stone God and a Shrieking Chorus, are standard customs. Despite agreeing on simplicity, the couple faces relentless outside pressure. Dorothy admires a sterling silver Promise Egg, a decorative symbol of marital commitment, far beyond their budget. Peter secretly decides to buy it on credit and picks up extra quarry shifts, but the company eliminates overtime after a coworker's injury. Dorothy's father agrees to help only if Peter includes goat slaughter. During Dorothy's traditional Week of Lying with the Grand Priest, she reveals doubts about the marriage, interpreting Peter's long absences as disinterest. He confesses he has been working to afford the egg, and they reconcile. At the wedding, a half-dead goat rampages through the ceremony, and the couple locks eyes across the chaos and begins laughing.

"Missed Connection—m4w," structured as a Craigslist personal ad, describes a man who notices a woman on the Brooklyn Q train and rides back and forth with her for what stretches into 60 years of silence. She eventually exits, and he reflects that one can know someone for 60 years and still not know them at all. In "The Serial Monogamist's Guide to Important New York City Landmarks," each landmark is defined by a past relationship. The story ends with the narrator imagining a future with her current partner, Carlos, far from New York's accumulated ghosts, while wondering if he, too, will become another bittersweet memory.

"We Men of Science" follows Yoni Beckerman, a professor of aerospace engineering whose wife, Jessica, has been pregnant for 11 months. Yoni's mentor, Dr. Carl Hesslein, secures funding for the Anti-Door, a passage to an anti-universe. Yoni joins the project, haunted by something terrible he witnessed on the Metro and failed to stop, hoping to find a braver version of himself. After funding is cut and Hesslein secretly leaves the device in Yoni's office, Yoni walks through and enters a flooded, dystopian world. He meets his opposite, an arrogant Yonatan, and Yonatan's wife, Jecka, Jessica's vibrant, not-pregnant opposite. Yoni begins visiting Jecka daily, losing teeth with each crossing. They kiss on New Year's Eve. Jessica, growing extra teeth, confronts Yoni; his silence confirms her suspicion. Hesslein explains that Yoni has been skipping across infinite universes, never returning to the same one. Jessica gives birth and tells Yoni she stayed because she loves him. Yoni asks Yonatan what he did about the terrible thing on the Metro; Yonatan admits he also did nothing. The anti-universe held no better self.

"These Are Facts" addresses Heather, an 18-year-old on a family vacation in Puerto Vallarta with her parents and her half brother West, a scruffy 26-year-old she barely knows. They bond at the resort, but tensions mount when Jordan, another 18-year-old guest, creates a triangle of jealousy. After a bitter argument, West later tells Heather that when she looks at him, he feels like she can see everything. On their last morning, Heather breaks down crying, and the story ends with an unspoken understanding between them. Throughout, Heather's private notebook of facts functions as her way of processing a world she cannot articulate.

"Rufus." is narrated from the perspective of a dog who calls his owner ManMonster and tries to decipher human speech. When ManMonster's boyfriend's dog soils the bed and Rufus's alerts are misunderstood, the resulting fight drives the boyfriend away. ManMonster becomes depressed. At a crowded birthday party, an overwhelmed Rufus makes waste in the house, and ManMonster puts him outside. ManMonster eventually opens the door, sits beside Rufus, and repeats his name in a tone that conveys love, disappointment, and comfort.

"Up-and-Comers" is narrated by Lauren, a 23-year-old pianist in a San Francisco alt-folk band whose members gain superpowers, fueled by drinking, after a lightning strike. Fame and alcohol escalate together until band member Joelle flies drunkenly into the sky and falls to her death. Lauren's best friend Lizzy opposes Lauren's engagement to the team's manager, Mutt Wang, and the two have a violent public fight. Lauren removes her mystic-bead necklace, the source of her powers, and her engagement ring, ending both her superhero career and her relationship. She moves home to Tulsa and dries out. When Lizzy visits and asks Lauren to play one of her own songs, Lauren decides to be brave.

"Rules for Taboo" uses the format of instructions for the board game Taboo to reveal the unraveling of past relationships. The entry for PARK includes the line that gives the book its title: A woman at a party once slurred, "You deserve someone who will love you in all your damaged glory" (121). In "The Average of All Possible Things," Lucinda, a corporate lawyer, navigates the aftermath of a secret relationship with Gavin, a senior colleague who denied her a promotion and then broke up with her. Debbie, the receptionist, gives Lucinda a wristwatch so she can stop checking her phone and reminds her that for most pain, the only remedy is time. Lucinda begins to feel "not as good as good, but loads better than bad" (200).

"More of the You That You Already Are" is narrated by an unnamed man who works as Chester A. Arthur at Presidentland, a presidential theme park. His sister, Ramona, has cancer, and his income covers their rent and her medical costs. When the park introduces a hybrid clone made from presidential DNA to replace human actors, the narrator fights to save his job while reluctantly helping the wardrobe attendant, Emika, rescue the creature she loves. After Ramona's surgery leaves her in a coma, he sits with her until she wakes. The story closes with his reflection that loving someone "just brings out more of the you that you already are" (240).

Several shorter pieces round out the collection. "short stories" offers micro-fictions on loneliness and self-deception. "Lies We Told Each Other (a partial list)" traces a relationship entirely through the lies partners tell. "Lunch with the Person Who Dumped You" presents post-breakup scenarios as a game-show menu. "Move across the country." is a lyric essay about trying to outrun sadness by relocating. "You Want to Know What Plays Are Like?" follows Dakota as she watches her brother Dusty's play and realizes the characters are versions of their family, including their sister Shannon, who died of an overdose. "the poem," written in rhyming couplets, closes with the observation that "A person's a thing that is tricky to read, but it's trickier yet to feel read" (178). The collection ends with "We will be close on Friday 18 July.," in which a misprinted shop sign becomes a promise of radical intimacy shared for one night. By morning, the love scatters and the two become strangers, with the sign's closing words serving as an epitaph: "Sorry for any inconvenience" (242).