Invitation

Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction In Invitation, men and women try and fail to connect to the people they want to be with. As they remember the first people who dominated their livesparents, best friends, cousins, crushesthey find themselves repeating old patterns. A boy shares seemingly disturbing details about his mothers disappearance with an aloof tutor. A man stalks an ex-girlfriend but finds her missing. A woman wakes up in an empty apartmentand to every mothers worst nightmare. When a callous young man penetrates the bell jar of an elderly couples quiet life, their live-in assistant learns a cruel lesson about loyalty. Why are we the way we are with one another? And what do our relationships ask us to become? In these stories, set mostly in South Korea, all must contend with the uncertainty and danger that comes with connection, real or imagined. These stories by Mi Jin Kim ask us to consider what it is we really want from the people we think we need.