Laura Newman

“With candor, wry wit and memorable details, these stories shimmer” as characters across the world embark on strange journeys of the spirit (Publishers Weekly). In these ten short stories, author Laura Newman brings readers along to Varanasi, Tijuana, Rome, Lhasa, New Orleans, Valdez, Barcelona, and the Isle of Skye. And her characters are just as diverse as her destinations: There’s Maggie, who’s taking her brother’s ghost on a trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary in Nepal; Gomez, who has a date with destiny at the Tijuana hypermarket; a Norwegian preacher who relocates to Varanasi, India, in a valiant effort to convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity; and, in the title story, the women who run an undercover orphanage in New Orleans, wearing habits by day while playing poker at night. Although these fictions occur thousands of miles apart from one another, within wildly different cultures, they are unified in their portrayal of ordinary citizens going to outlandish lengths to find connection, healing, or hope.

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