Humans have always connected deeply to the idea of home. In Bryn
Chancellor's nine stories, home means, in part, the physical
spaces: the buildings, cities and towns, the fragile, imperious
landscapes of the region. But home is also profoundly rooted in
intangibles. Set in urban and rural Arizona, home, for the
characters in these stories, is love—familial, romantic, and
unrequited. It is loss and grief. It is the memories that surface
late at night. It is mystery and longing and a shining flicker of
hope.In the title story, a locksmith prowls empty houses and
befriends a young mother as he and his wife grapple with a tragedy
perpetrated by their son. During an overseas trip, a daughter
grieving for her father struggles with her mother's altered
appearance; an irrigation worker meets a troubled teenage girl in
the darkness of her flooded yard; and a daughter and her estranged,
ailing mother stay in a dilapidated cabin while a mountain lion
stalks the woods. Through chance meetings between strangers,
collisions within families, and confrontations with the self,
characters leave and return, time and again, trying desperately to
find their way home.