In these three deeply observed novellas, award-winning author David Nikki Crouse dramatizes the lives of women living in Interior Alaska. Each novella acts as an extended meditation on grief, loss, and the nature of imagination. Crouse's usual storytelling gifts are on full display here, but the darkness found in past short story collections is balanced by images of stark beauty. In “Misfortune and Its Double,” a woman remembers—and manufactures—the story of an arduous cross-country drive that might not be entirely true. “A Rough Map of the Interior” follows a woman's life from suicide attempt to hospitalization to a new kind of self-knowledge, and “Asmodeus Speaks” lingers on a Dungeon and Dragons roleplaying game in remote Fairbanks and its disruption when one of its players, a young Yupik man, goes missing.

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"A beautifully written and powerful series of novellas that work in tandem to explore sophisticated themes of both memory and the power, malleability, and unreliability of story.”

—Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of Annie and the Wolves

“Highly original. These stories are well-paced, vividly dramatized, and emotionally resonant. Truly masterful storytelling from a contemporary master.”

—Andrew Porter, author of The Theory of Light and Matter and In Between Days