Beautiful Days: Stories

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024One of The New Yorker's Best Books We've Read in 2024"A bright new voice in fiction…A genuine young talent, one who deftly palpates the dark areas of human psyches…we might be staring before long at [the] 'Selected Stories of Zach Williams.'" —Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book ReviewFrom New Yorker and Paris Review contributor Zach Williams comes a striking and savage debut story collection that confronts parenthood, mortality, and life’s broken promises.A couple awakens in a home in the woods to find themselves rapidly aging as their toddler remains unchanged. A work-worn employee navigates conspiracy theories and the threat of violence in an abandoned office. A tour guide leads a troublesome group to an ancient structure, apparently nonhuman in origin, discovering along the way that the most mysterious creatures of all are right beside him.These ten stories show the fallibility of time and how reality reveals itself behind the gauze of