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The Quiet Parts: Short Stories
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher Price: $15.99
ISBN13: 9781732366886
Publisher: Calling Field Press
Published: Mar 31 2026
Pages: 252
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.57 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The Quiet Parts is a collection of stories about what happens in the pauses-between decisions, between paychecks, between the words we mean and the words we settle for. Set in a Rhode Island (and adjacent New England) that feels both intimate and unyielding, these narratives move through clinics and kitchens, bars and boundary lines, offices and nursing homes-places where ordinary life quietly sharpens into something else. A young man stares at grout lines and learns what dignity costs. A receptionist at an overburdened clinic tries to help a mother navigate paperwork that behaves like a maze. A move-out inspection becomes a moral trial. An open mic night turns kindness into a performance and cruelty into entertainment. A neighbor disputes a property line until mine and yours begin to feel like threats.
Written with lyrical precision and an eye for the small, consequential details people miss until it's too late, The Quiet Parts explores power, shame, tenderness, and survival-how we carry what we can't say out loud, and how the world keeps asking us to prove we deserve care. These stories don't shout for attention; they do something braver: they listen, closely, to the human heart under pressure-and to the silence where the truth often lives.
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