ABOUT SAD GROWNUPS

“Funny, insightful, and wise. I couldn't stop reading." — Cara Blue Adams, You Never Get It Back

A neighborhood of picturesque content-creation houses perched on too-green lawns in a California desert; a meandering stampede of unleashed dogs on the streets of San Francisco; a skein of snow geese alighting in a state park in Missouri; an uncanny fundraising auction at an upscale suburban-DC prep school.

Inhabiting these worlds of disconnection and dislocation are the “sad grownups”: a middle-aged queer couple arguing over whether to have children, a college professor dying from cancer, two recent high school graduates plotting a robbery, a sixty-year-old counselor at a boys’ summer camp sheltering herself from the realities of life—all connected more closely to the landscapes around them than to other people.

In her powerful debut, Amy Stuber explores the search for joy in a dying world, where being an adult means performing narrow versions of acceptability on repeat. In each story, a roadmap for release from the strictures of American consumerism, gender roles, and the strain of living through climate crisis. To read this collection is to follow each character as they search fervently for liberation, understanding, and even happiness, wherever and however they might be found. 

PRAISE FOR SAD GROWNUPS

“The short stories in Stuber’s collection are kind. They take care of these characters and take care of readers. “Sad” may be in the title and inhabit a lot of the stories, but there is also hope. Reading this collection was like being wrapped in a warm blanket.”
—Debutiful

“A powerhouse collection”
—Booklist

“A distinct yet relatable collection of stories about aging, relationships, decisions and (dis)connections. This is a smart, sensitive and satisfying debut.”
—Ms. Magazine 

“Smart, funny, spooky and melancholy, Sad Grownups is full of unique gems that come together into a rewarding whole."   
—Dan Chaon, author of Stay Awake

“Amy Stuber's stories are about your neighbors and friends, the people you think you know, and what they are all hiding from you: the truth, which is that we are children and will remain so, that we are performing and we don't know it. Stuber's characters fumble through adulthood, they endure the confusing mysteries of growing up, they try to connect and instead create disasters. Sad Grownups marks the arrival of an erudite, controlled, and generous voice from the heart of America.” 
—Richard Mirabella, author of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest 

“There is a cool immediacy, an urgency to these stories that feels like a whispered invitation to read them. But Stuber also handles the often off-kilter characters and tales with such a steady, sure hand that I felt safe and a little in awe. The definition of reading deliciously!” 
—Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You

“Each story took me to the joyfully complex, lovingly hated yet adored world as it is today, and did so with some of the funniest and saddest characters I’ve read in quite some time. Reading these stories, I lost myself, and when I put the book down, I found myself anew. Sad Grownups is a remarkable debut story collection by a writer who I already want more from.”  
—Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit: A Novel

“Sad Grownups is an incisive collective portrait of contemporary Americans: each story... a snapshot of what it is to be alive today. In the tradition of Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore, Amy Stuber is as sharp as she is tender, a delight to read.”
—Kate Doyle, author of I Meant It Once

“Stories that hold the grief of the whole world but also the imaginative exultation of trying to live in it. Stuber writes sentences that are in a class of their own—flexible enough to twist from heartbreak into hilarity, full of observations so precise they leave you gasping. Sad Grownups is a brilliant collection.” 
—Clare Beams, author of The Garden and The Illness Lesson 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amy Stuber’s writing has appeared in the New England Review, Flash Fiction America, Ploughshares, The Idaho Review, Cincinnati Review, Triquarterly, American Short Fiction, Joyland, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of the Missouri Review’s 2023 William Peden Prize in fiction, winner of the 2021 Northwest Review Fiction Prize, and runner-up for the 2022 CRAFT Short Fiction Prize. Her work received a special mention in Pushcart Prize XLIV, appeared on the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2021, has been nominated for Best of the Net, and appears in Best Small Fictions 2020 and 2023. She has a PhD in English, has taught college writing, and worked in online education for many years.

For more news and press, check out her website.