How to Walk on Water and Other Stories

2021 CHICAGO WRITERS ASSOCIATION BOOK OF THE YEAR AN ELECTRIC LIT FAVORITE STORY COLLECTION OF 2020 A NEW YORK TIMES “NEW & NOTEWORTHY” SELECTION A CHICAGO TRIBUNE Fall 2020 “MUST-READ TITLE” A FOREWORD REVIEWS “BOOK OF THE DAY” WINNER OF THE 2018 NEW AMERICAN FICTION PRIZE One of the best debuts I’ve read in years. [….]Rachel Swearingen is the real deal – a masterful writer, always in control, always holding the reader in the palm of her hand. On the strength of this book, I’ll read everything she writes. — JOHN MCNALLY, author of The Book of Ralph How to Walk on Water and Other Stories presents stories that bristle with menace and charm with intimate revelations. An investment banker falls for a self-made artist who turns the rooms of her apartment into eerie art installations. An au pair imagines her mundane life as film noir, endangering the infant in her care. A down-on-his-luck son moves in with his elderly mother and tries to piece together the brutal attack she survived when he was a baby. Swearingen takes us from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Northern Michigan, to Seattle, Venice, and elsewhere. She explores not only what it means to survive in a world marked by violence and uncertainty, but also how to celebrate what is most alive. Rachel Swearingen is a writer of extraordinary range and talent, wholly sui generis. Her sense of humor is fresh and wonderfully off-kilter, and her understanding of the contradictions of the human heart is profound. — CHRISTINE SNEED, author of Little Known Facts and The Virginity of Famous Men The nine stories in Rachel Swearingen’s debut collection, How to Walk on Water, are magnificent. With her spare prose and keen insights into her characters’ lives, Swearingen truly honors the elegant, noble tradition of the short story. I admire her superb powers of observation and description, her spot-on pacing, and the grace she accords to her characters, in all their fragility and weirdness and resilience. Most of all, I admire the careful, honest way Swearingen infuses these stories with dignity, beauty, and wonder. — ELIZABETH WETMORE, author of Valentine Buckle up and prepare to be haunted, moved, and to laugh when you’d least expect it. — EILEEN FAVORITE, author of The Heroines A beautiful and timeless collection full of mystery. [….] Swearingen’s assured voice, styled with lyrical noir, cuts through like a howl heard in the night. — MELINDA MOUSTAKIS, author of Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories