Very Good Butter: Stories

The characters in this story collection are like electrons: as they spin they attempt to overcome their potential differences, they move in and out of each other's orbits, emitting, as they do, a few photons of light. Their efforts, however, are constantly altered, and even undermined, by the unpredictable influence of the outside world's chemical activity. Touching, terrifying, and funny, Lavery's stories are about people trying to understand their place in the world. They are attempts to construct a destiny that is appropriate to the essential mystery behind the first encounter of the principals. For Lavery, it doesn't matter whether stories span minutes or years: everything is enclosed within a first, germinal instant.