num_pages: 198
description: Reminiscent of Aimee Bender and Karen Russellan enthralling collection that uses the world of the imagination to explore the heart of the human condition.Major literary talent Ramona Ausubel author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty  coming Summer 2016 combines the otherworldly wisdom of her much-loved debut novel No One Is Here Except All of Us  with the precision of the short-story form. A Guide toBeing Born is organized around the stages of lifelove conception gestation birthand the transformations that happen as people experience deeply altering life events falling in love becoming parents looking toward the end of life. In each of these eleven stories Ausubels stunning imagination and humor are moving entertaining and provocative leading readers to see the familiar world in a new way.In Atria a pregnant teenager believes she will give birth to any number of strange animals rather than a human baby; in Catch and Release a girl discovers the ghost of a Civil War hero living in the woods behind her house; and in Tributaries people grow a new arm each time they fall in love. Funny surprising and delightfully strangeall the stories have a strong emotional core; Ausubels primary concern is always love in all its manifestations.
language: English
title: A Guide to Being Born: Stories
publisher: Riverhead Books