A debut collection of stories in the tradition of George Saunders or Kelly Link that announced the arrival of a major new storytelling talent. Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. 'Grand Stand-In' is narrate...

A debut collection of stories in the tradition of George Saunders or Kelly Link that announced the arrival of a major new storytelling talent. Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. 'Grand Stand-In' is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider - a company that supplies 'stand-ins' for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in 'Blowing Up On the Spot,' a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. Southern gothic at its best, laced with humour and pathos, the wonderfully inventive stories in Tunneling to the Center of the Earth explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.