"This is a world of secret-sharers, a noisy world full of unimaginable silence," claims one of the characters in this compelling debut collection. The ten stories in Bewildered examine small-world disruptions?mistimed infatuations, devastating diagnoses, the realizations inherent in loss. Characters look up from what they assumed were ordinary lives amazed to discover where they find themselves. Familiar landscapes?city streets, coastal towns emptied of tourists, suburban neighborhoods?are backdrops for unfulfilled dreams: the luckiest man alive arouses the suspicions of those he most wants to befriend, a grieving lover invites herself into another's life, a young girl discovers her tea leaves reveal nothing as life-altering as those of her friend, the straying husband pays a debt for his and his son's obsessions. The stories ask: Can you live any way forever? What links them is what links all of us: the desire to belong, the need to heal, the fear of what happens next.