Black Coffee Night — Emily Schultz

A postscript to the 1990s, Emily Schultz's stories feature male and female narrators exploring issues of fidelity and sexuality, the meaning of art love and work. In the eleven stories that make up Black Coffee Night, a small-town superhero puts on his female counterpart's costume, the midnight laundromat beauty queen ages as surely as her sweaters collect more dog hair, and the little red-haired girl leaves before you can tell her you love her. Twin sisters look at life from the sidelines of the soccer field, and the future prom queen is deflowered two years before the twelfth-grade formal while the rest of the characters desperately search for dance partners for "Stairway to Heaven."