ebut collection of short fiction that delves into the relationships between fathers and their children: the good, the bad, and the awful. In these emotionally charged stories, a young expectant father, on the edge of homelessness, loses his religion and duels with a street preacher; fifty-year-old twins, survivors of foster care, war, and prison, fight over the decision to finally meet the father who abandoned them as infants, and hold him to account; and a Pulitzer-winning, ageist professor seeks to quash the writing dreams of an elderly student while coming to terms with how much love he's lost as a result of his career. These nine stories open a window into the most primal elements of the human condition-childhood and parenting-and show us how, try as we might, we can never fully escape the bonds of blood.