All Points North: 14 Short Stories

Life is sometimes comical, always moving, and often starkly painful. In his debut compilation of fourteen short stories, Shelby Lee reveals the deep psychological complexities of the human experience by tracing the roots of emotions and shining a much-needed light on seemingly unexplainable behavior and attitudes.

It is a few days before Christmas in 1971 when a young man's romantic fascination with the rustic life collides with the dark reality and horror of an ordinary hunting outing. It is the late 1960s when a mother invites a clinical psychologist into her home, much to the surprise of her sons--one of whom eventually uncovers the doctor's unorthodox and illegal treatments. When an obsessive compulsive patient cannot stop taking showers, a chemical hypnotic interview succeeds in only making life worse. A dysfunctional family reveals their complicated dynamics--but only behind closed doors.

All Points North is a wide-ranging and ambitious collection of short stories that offers a remarkable and moving psychological journey into a complicated interior world.