Between Here and the Yellow Sea

In this both heartbreaking and humorous collection, we meet a base-jumping, samurai park ranger who parachutes off the St. Louis Arch; a stained glass artist who struggles over his masterpiece and learns through great loss what his true subject will be; and a religious elementary school teacher who tries to understand her rebellious, militant son. In the title story, which first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, an orphaned young man and his former high school football coach set out to kidnap the coach’s daughter from Los Angeles and bring her back to east Texas.

With an assured, poignant voice, Pizzolatto places us at the crossroads of memory and desire, somewhere between here and the Yellow Sea.