I absolutely loved this collection of very short stories inspired by a series of wonderful found photographs. Cary Fagan has a real ear for dialogue and a way of making each perfectly formed vignette surprising, whether that’s taking a surreal turn in ‘We Have to Be Careful,’ introducing the macabre in ‘Who I’ve Come For,’ or quietly breaking my heart, in ‘Where We Are Now.’

The Old World and Other Stories features 35 unique photographs and an accompanying story created around its contents.Each story is inspired by a photograph Fagan found and collected over the years, offering small vignettes into people’s lives.Perfect for fans of literary fiction, short fiction, and flash fiction.

AdultsIt was the first adult party I ever held, although we weren’t really adults, not quite. It was the end of high school, when everything would change and we all knew it and so I desperately wanted to mark it in some way — not by getting drunk at the lake, or racing in some boy’s car, or just with the graduation ceremony and the dance that would follow.I wanted a party of my own, where people would act civilized and talk about interesting things and see in ourselves the women and men we were about to become.At least that’s how I see it now, all these decades later, when I’d be surprised if a stranger could look at me and see the girl I was then. I wanted a new pretty hairstyle and shoes with heels and to greet people at the door and play records and eat finger sandwiches and say “Do you remember five years ago when we were kids?” and “I think politics is a worthwhile career” and “Don’t you agree that Nat King Cole was a better pianist than a singer?” I wanted to make a list of who I wanted to come, and who I felt obliged to ask, and revise it over and over, and spend evenings sewing my new dress with my mother nearby to help with the hard parts. I wanted to spend the afternoon of the party in the kitchen with my two best friends, Matilda and Elizabeth, cutting up celery and making dips and laughing as we spread icing on the cake that would be cut into squares. I wanted to beg my father to let us have punch, something with a little alcohol in it, and he would pretend to be scandalized (as if he didn’t know that everyone drank) but finally give in and then insist on making it himself because nobody could possibly make punch like he could.And I wanted every moment, every second of the party, to be vivid and alive and for it to go past midnight when my friends would help me clean up and then Dad would drive them home and after I would lie in bed, absolutely unable to sleep, smiling about something I said, or somebody else said, or how that drink got spilled and people bent to clean it up and how grown up everyone acted and how full my heart was, not with being scared as it had been for weeks now but with a most wonderful, wonderful feeling.