The Next to Last Migration

A divorced father and his one-week-a-year son build a log raft on a river in Sweden. When the boy gets trapped under a log, the father becomes both hero and anti-hero. A troubled couple trekking in Nepal rescue their sherpa after a fall, then have to save their marriage from altitude sickness. A woman fears that her husband was aboard the plane she sees on TV smashing into the World Trade Tower on 9/11 2001. Some time in the hi-tech future, a woman runs away from her planned adolescence. In the title story of this collection, a charismatic preacher migrates with his wife and daughters from Minnesota to Beverly Hills, parish to parish, fleeing a secret. Vagabond, pilgrim, refugee, tourist: for the diverse travelers who populate these stories, homesickness is more about moving on than about looking back.