A gentle stoicism marks these stories, almost overlooked. These tales are unshowy, recounting the tensions of mundanity, the silent challenges of the everyday, the ordinary. Set in office spaces, backroads, suburbia, and everywhere familiar in-between, Chu takes the normal and instills it with a refreshing quality. I’m still trying to pin down what this exactly is, but it has a great deal to do with the clear and condensed writing style. These stories feel accomplished without being dry, quietly confident. It takes great skill to sit this far back, for an author to declare presence with technique and simplicity. I read a lot of ego writers, and love that too, but this is a different kind of ego, one equally as valid and interesting, but one I’m less familiar with.

From what I gather these stories have been published in various venues at different points but the collection remains extremely cohesive, one short flowing to the next very naturally, tonally shifting on a wavelength. There is some variation but mostly the stories adhere to a traditional structure, relying on character and the lowkey absurdity of existence.

Chu is obviously exceptionally talented, and these stories of the unexceptional, the worn by the years, and the bewildered - as we all are - are very worthy of giving a shot. ( )