WHY THEY RUN THE WAY THEY DO

Susan Perabo’s new short story collection.

In Why They Run the Way They Do, Perabo illustrates the triumphs and tragedies of daily life in twelve beautifully crafted short stories. Filled with everyday truths perfectly distilled into moments of sharp humor and poignancy, Why They Run the Way They Do features individuals facing unusual or challenging situations – often of their own making. Two young students try their hand at blackmail on learning an illicit secret; a woman’s grapples with feelings of betrayal after discovering her spinster sister’s pregnancy test; the ghost of a couple’s past comes back to haunt them in the form of their toddler’s stuffed toy.

Weaving the banal and bizarre together, Perabo captures the human condition through struggles that are quiet and grand; dark and provocative. Brilliantly crafted, Why They Run the Way They Do is ultimately an homage to the philosophy that life without humor is no life at all.

Perabo won a 2010 Pushcart Prize for her short story “Shelter” and her work has been anthologized three times in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES (1992; 2007; 2010) and featured in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS (2005). Her stories have also appeared in One Story, Glimmer Train, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and The Sun. The story “Indulgence” from this collection was featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts in March 2014.