Why Trees

<b>“A brilliant, unexpected writer . . . Hannah Gold is giving the NYC creative class a treatment both brutal and tender in <i>Why Trees</i>, her genre-bending, almost irritatingly funny first collection of short stories . . . [as] if Tony Tulathimutte’s <i>Rejection </i>had a baby with Mary Gaitskill’s <i>Bad Behavior</i>.” —Lena Dunham<br> <br>“The gigawattage of Hannah Gold's wit and intelligence could light up Manhattan—and in <i>Why Trees</i> they literally do. Read this book or I'll kill you!” —Tony Tulathimutte, author of <i>Rejection </i><br> <br>Accomplished critic Hannah Gold makes her fiction debut in this funny, wise, curious collection of stories exploring the glorious absurdities of life in New York City</b><br><br><i>“People suffering extreme emotional states can so easily fly under the radar in this city, don’t you find?”</i><br><br>Across the nine stories in <i>Why Trees</i>, New Yorkers find themselves spotlit on a beautiful, dysfunctional stage cluttered with artists, grifters, and eccentrics all attempting to secure increasingly scarce footholds for themselves before the curtains come down. A prolific night blogger for a feminist website uses her boyfriend as a writing chair. A reality TV family hailing from Soho meets their superfan. A journalist working for an insolvent local newsroom ventures out to an artists’ encampment on Ellis Island for one final scoop. These characters’ quests—for love, creative fulfillment, a steady paycheck, a sense of belonging—are only further complicated by the follies of city livin financial and emotional insecurity, vanity, propinquity, and pure chaos.<br><br>Precise but playful, wry but emotionally resonant, <i>Why Trees </i>introduces a charming, perceptive, original voice through these sharp and memorable portraits of characters performing for mercurial audiences, seeking connection, and straining against the boundaries that have been set for them.