Objects of Desire

Winner of the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, selected by Alexandra Kleeman, Adam O'Fallon Price's unflinchingly honest and deliciously existential stories explore the ways our deepest hunger teases us toward both our best selves and endings we should have avoided. Objects of Desire, Price's debut short story collection, is filled with people driven by restless longings and unattainable desires-pushed to act by needs only half-understood-all the while picking up unintended bedfellows and conspirators: A resentful brother grapples with the responsibility of bone marrow donation for his dying sibling. A down-on-his-luck artist chases his dog through a cornfield and into the home of dangerous strangers. A college women's soccer goalie takes her pain out on her opponents, as she struggles to process her childhood and forgive her mother. Price shows us how the aching, often desperate, pull of wanting can unsettle our lives. The characters in this collection are consistently reaching for something more, only to miss the mark in quiet but irreversible ways.