pHollywood and Japan. The South and Midwest. Outer space and back home. Past and present. Myths and truths. Expectations and desires. Animals and humans. A storage locker and a softball game. A school play and an art installation. A bar mitzvah and an old tattoo. William Auten's new fifteen-story collection emA Fine Day Will Burn Throughem bridges cultures and explores how people of all ages try to reach for-and sometimes miss-each other. In circumstances both mundane and surprising, these characters wend their way through a contemporary world of excess and restraint, noise and silence, urgency and patience, regret and grace.p