Mike Shea on the month’s new releases

Hank Stuever

Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartbreak in the American Elswhere

Henry Holt

Two-time Pulitzer finalist HANK STUEVER pays loving homage to America's soft, strange underbelly in OFF RAMP: ADVENTURES AND HEARTBREAK IN THE AMERICAN ELSEWHERE (Henry Holt). The pieces, some previously published while Stuever was writing for the Austin American-Statesman and the Albuquerque Tribune and others from his current gig at the Washington Post, betray an affinity for oddball subject matter, like a discount funeral home in Austin or an auction of the abandoned contents of self-storage units. Stuever launches into smart and funny flights of fancy around each, a keen tour guide to places we've passed but never fully appreciated.

Sean Stewart

Perfect Circle

Small Beer Press

Seeing ghosts turns out to be the least of Will "Dead" Kennedy's problems in SEAN STEWART's magical PERFECT CIRCLE (Small Beer Press). The psycho-thriller's 32-year-old alt-punk protagonist loses his crummy pet-store job, gets shot in the chest, ticks off his ex-wife and adoring daughter, and—the ultimate indignity—has to navigate Houston's steamy sprawl by bus. Things start looking up when the owners of a spirit-infested house offer him money to intercede with their spooks—until Will finds he's haunted by demons scarier than any garden-variety poltergeist. Stewart's quicksilver wit makes Perfect Circle perfectly hilarious. And, a supremely skilled storyteller, he saves the best for last.

Bret Anthony Johnston

Corpus Christi

Random House

In the hands of South Texas native BRET ANTHONY JOHNSTON, human emotions are exotic beasts and CORPUS CHRISTI (Random House) is the zoo where he puts them all on display. The ten stories in this debut collection—all set in and around the title's Gulf Coast city—are litera verité depictions of simple family relationships—parent-child and husband-wife. They're all brought to a tipping point where calamity (illness, divorce, death, arrest) will change them forever. Life is cruel in Johnston's Corpus Christi. A young woman announces she's leaving her lover, that there's someone else. "Who?" he asks, devastated. "I don't know yet," she replies.