Only If We're Caught

This sensational debut collection of short stories takes readers on a tour of the astonishment inside the ordinary, the quotidian. Meet the happy wunderkind inside the sad elderly lover, the vulnerable teenager inside the high-powered lawyer, the loving father inside the vampire. Vampire? In these stories, no narrator is too far-fetched, because every voice is in some way our own. We unravel a mystery with a mortician troubled by the ghosts of his clients, stumble along a gravel road with a too-young pregnant woman searching for a lost girl, watch a feminist falling in love with the office Romeo, are charmed by a robotic humanoid with a penchant for merlot and sedition… Whether the subject is betrayal, disappointment, grief, love or longing, these stories will entertain you with zippy word-craft and sly humour, and seduce you with tenderness. Theressa Slind takes us on an exhilarating ride through the many chambers of the complicated, messed up, resilient human heart. “A stellar collection of stories–funny, poignant, wide-ranging and wise. Only If We’re Caught will catch your heart.” —Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi and The High Mountains of Portugal

Theressa Slind’s writing is perceptive, thoughtful, smart, funny and beautiful. In this collection, she finds the extraordinary everywhere—in her language, in the relationships she so beautifully explores, and in the luminous landscape of the everyday. — Alice Kuipers, author of Life on the Refrigerator Door and Me and Me