The stories in Why They Run the Way They Do vary in length and style and subject, but each one illuminates (in ways both large and small) the many unexpected challenges life can throw into one's way. In the opening story, "The Payoff," two young girls blackmail their school president after learning he is sleeping with their art teacher, never understanding the implications of their actions. "Life Off My E," the story of two divorced sisters living together as adults, explores the ways in which love and family can shape a person. A woman considers the last days spent with her dying mother, chain-smoking cigarettes and reminiscing, in "Indulgence"; "A Proper Burial" portrays one man's outsized grief at the loss of his dog.
"As it turned out, you could never really tell what the next day of your life would bring. Most of the time even the weathermen were wrong about tomorrow." This thread weaves through every page of Susan Perabo's stories: If tomorrow is in question, what must we make of today? How does the present fit into the context of the past and of the future? In the midst of these large and soul-searching questions, Perabo (The Broken Places) probes the nature of storytelling itself, with small moments that play at breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge the positions of author and reader along the way. With sharp prose and a knack for presenting the poignant in the midst of the banal, Perabo has proved herself a writer of utmost talent. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm