Beautiful Days by Zach Williams

Published by Doubleday on June 11, 2024

The stories collected in Beautiful Days are unexpected. They earn my recommendation simply because they are surprising, free from the typical domestic drama that seems to be the subject matter of most American short fiction. Some of the stories are a bit surreal, but most are not so far removed from reality that they lose their appeal.

In one of my favorite stories — “Lucca Castle,” the longest in the volume — a man who is grieving the loss of his wife and isn’t coping well with his daughter embarks on an experiment. The experiment essentially involves living in the moment and being open to anything, even if “anything” means sleeping all day and wallowing in grief. A younger woman at a diner takes an unlikely interest in him and, following a bizarre coincidence that might be interpreted as fate, they hook up. She brings him to a guru-like figure who might be a cult leader, a man who condemns the kind of wealth-acquisition work that is the protagonist’s career. By walking away from the cult, the experiment brings him closer to his daughter, closer to understanding how he needs to move ahead with his life.

“Ghost Image” is another of my favorites. It is narrated by a man who, while working at a meaningless temp job, pitied his boss for dreaming of a post-retirement career as a monorail conductor at Disney World. Years later, as a father whose unfaithful wife has died, having realized none of his own half-formed dreams, the man talks to his former boss as if he is a spirit, seeing him in a stranger in a bar, seeing him in the teenage son from whom he has become estranged. After abandoning his life, he journeys to a future where Disney World is shuttered and surrounded by the remnants of natural disasters, and imagines seeing his old boss wearing a conductor’s cap. The story is a reminder that when we are young, we don’t “know how long life takes, or what it does to you as you live it.” This is an odd and discomfiting story. Those qualities might contribute to my admiration of it.

The narrator of “Trial Run” works for a small analytics firm. Someone has been sending antisemitic emails to the business’ employees. The emails target the manager. Since the emails began immediately after a diversity workshop, there is reason to believe that the sender is an employee. The business has hired a security guard, but he seems to be a believer in conspiracy theories, leading the narrator to wonder whether the guard sent the emails. Another suspect is a paranoid co-worker who overshares, a man who might be “hiding below the surface of routine, awaiting, with all the patience of a fanatic, some dark eventuality in which to reveal himself.” The story is an amusing take on office politics and daily fears.

In the most surreal story, Jacob and Ronna rented a vacation cottage but they can’t recall how long they’ve been there or even where the cottage is located. They argue about ways to investigate their circumstances and fail to follow through on their plans. Their behavior grows progressively more bizarre. Their toddler never seems to be injured when he falls, never seems to be hungry when his parents leave for days to explore the wilderness. Like a snapping turtle, he never seems to grow older. In his crib, Ronna believes him to be safe from scary things. His parents might be the scariest thing in his life, which might or might not be the point of “Wood Sorrel House.”

“Red Light” tells the story of a kinky hookup with a woman whose boyfriend (his description is a bit freakish) likes to watch her have sex while hiding in the closet. In “Neighbors,” an elderly woman’s son asks her neighbor to check on his mother. The mother is dead but someone is standing in her bedroom, a resident of “an unbroken field, containing everything.” The protagonist in “Mousetraps” has a strange conversation with a hardware store owner who questions the value of humane mousetraps.

Three other stories, including one about a fellow who suddenly grows an extra toe, didn’t do much for me. On the whole, however, this is a diverse collection of enjoyable, offbeat stories.

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