Overview
Lives of longing and resilience, searching and belonging in a debut story collection from a memoirist and renowned advocate for change For a Lucky Tomorrow Buy a Flower Today. Is it true? a prospective customer asks. About the luck? ""Absolutely!"" Felma says. Flowers, she knows, are all that's anchored in this world, even if not for long, and like others in these luminous stories, Felma knows what it is to be rootless. In Lucky Tomorrow, Deborah Jiang-Stein presents an unforgettable cast of characters dreaming of redemption, purpose, and connection in a wounded yet beautiful world. A young girl stuck working at her family's candy stand. A former priest trapped on a crowded train. A prisoner robbed of the book she's been writing. A father haunted by his broken family. A woman confined to a psych ward. A reverend caring for her dying housemate. And Felma, a flower vendor, searching for the daughter she gave birth to while in prison, who was swiftly bundled away. Felma's story leads us in, through, and around the others-a central beating heart for these lives on the fringes, where Jiang-Stein finds a singular, tenacious humanity. The stories in Lucky Tomorrow move through settings drawn from the path of the author's own life: Seattle, where she grew up after being born in an Appalachian prison; Tokyo, where she once lived; the Twin Cities, where she currently resides; and the American South, where she travels for much of her advocacy work with women in prison. Pushing the boundaries of genre, Jiang-Stein delicately layers the stories of these outcasts, eccentrics, and visionaries, gathering them in from the shadows with remarkable empathy and candor, laying bare our shared sorrows and joys.
Full Product Details
Author: Deborah Jiang-Stein
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 1.30cm
, Length: 21.00cm
Weight: 0.340kg
ISBN: 9781517919276
ISBN 10: 1517919274
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 30 June 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Not yet available
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Reviews
""In this panorama of invitingly short stories about people from all walks of life keeping true to themselves while surviving, Deborah Jiang-Stein's empathy exudes uncommon valor. These characters live in prisons and in other milieus far from the spotlights enjoyed by the fortunate and the famous, and the clarity of Jiang-Stein's prose renders them often starkly yet always compellingly.""--Mark Wish, editor and publisher of Coolest American Stories and author of Necessary Deeds
Author Information
Deborah Jiang-Stein is an award-winning writer, public speaker, collaborator, and author of the memoir Prison Baby. She is founder of the unPrison Project, working with and mentoring people in prisons to build life skills.
