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We Were Lucky with the Rain Book Cover

a collection of short stories by Susan Buttenwieser

Susan's debut short story collection, reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, featured in Poets & Writers' "5 Over 50: 2020," and finalist for the 2021 Foreword Reviews INDIES.

Available at Four Way Books and local bookstores.

Four Way Books
Bookshop.org
Powell's City of Books

The characters inhabiting Susan Buttenwieser’s debut story collection We Were Lucky with the Rain stand at the margin of society, often perched on the knife’s edge of economic disaster. Her characters cope with emotional and physical isolation as they try to build, keep, or renew family structures. An older brother drops out of college and tries to keep his youngest sister from ending up like the rest of the family. A father shields his daughters from their mother’s erratic behavior, while his daughters struggle to understand their anxiety and anger. An uncle copes with his helplessness to protect his nephew. No quick fixes, no miracle cures await the people within these stories. This is fiction devoted to realism. And Buttenwieser’s compassionate narrator refuses to look away during their most vulnerable trials. A remarkable debut collection.

"Buttenwieser’s sketches are more like pathology slides of the human condition than snapshots of happy family picnics."

- Kirkus Reviews

read more press >

more short stories

Unaccompanied Minors

It’s Sunday night and you are watching television with your brothers and your grandfather is dozing in his brown plaid easy chair when a stranger appears in the living room...

The Last Supper

Even though it’s only Thursday, Jack and his family are going to watch a movie tonight...

We Were Lucky With the Rain

Lacey can't resist spying on her parents...

Someone's Drunk Wife

Someone’s drunk wife is in an upstairs bedroom. She has been flirting with you for hours and now the party is over. Her husband is not here...

Ascension

The bars are open all up and down North Street, doors ajar, and as Sonny drives past, he can just about taste the cold beer...

If

Ass got Sonny out of bed every morning....

The Walk, 1992

It isn’t a good week for this. That’s Mike’s first thought when he arrives at work on Monday morning...

want to read more?

Check out Susan Buttenwieser's debut novel, 

Junction of Earth and Sky, out on August 1st in the UK.

Junction of Earth and Sky Book Cover
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