How to Walk on Water and Other Stories
Rachel Swearingen's debut, How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, presents stories that bristle with menace and charm with intimate revelations. An investment banker falls for a self-made artist who turns the rooms of her apartment into eerie art installations. An au pair imagines her mundane life as film noir, endangering the infant in her care. A down-on-his-luck son moves in with his elderly mother and tries to piece together the brutal attack she survived when he was a baby. Through nimble prose and considerable powers of observation, Swearingen takes us from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Northern Michigan, to Seattle, Venice, and elsewhere. She explores not only what it means to survive in a world marked by violence and uncertainty, but also how to celebrate what is most alive.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
"How to Walk on Water is one of the best debuts I've read in years. Lovely and haunting, these stories make my pulse beat harder, my breath catch, my heart break. Margaret Atwood said of the short story, 'You need the Ancient Mariner element, the Scheherazade element: a sense of urgency. This is the story I must tell; this is the story you must hear.' This book is full of stories that must be told, stories you must hear. Rachel Swearingen is the real deal--a masterful writer, always in control, always holding the reader in the palm of her hand. On the strength of this book, I'll read everything she writes."
-- JOHN MCNALLY, author of The Book of Ralph
"How to Walk on Water is one of those rare books I encounter two or three times a year if I'm lucky, books I not only want to read again but know with certainty I will. Rachel Swearingen is a writer of extraordinary range and talent, wholly sui generis. Her sense of humor is fresh and wonderfully off-kilter, and her understanding of the
contradictions of the human heart is profound."
-- CHRISTINE SNEED, author of Little Known Facts and The Virginity of Famous Men
"Buckle up and prepare to be haunted, moved, and to laugh when you'd least expect it. Swearingen's visionary writing illuminates the dark corners of the human heart. Her complex and troubled characters will take you down the dark roads of the North Woods, or into the cramped confines of a haunted Chicago brownstone. You're in the hands of a clever and generous writer, whose ability to create whole characters and to deliver smart plot twists never disappoints."
-- EILEEN FAVORITE, author of The Heroines
