The debut story collection from Oregon Book Award finalist Charlie J. Stephens, Annihilation for Beginners, generously explicates Jean-Paul Sartre's missive that "life begins on the other side of despair." In 28 short stories, including a supernatural small-town mystery, a multigenerational family drama, and a maternal love story, the book considers what secular hope in the Anthropocene might look like. A child finds affinity with mollusks, a couple takes experimental drugs at the cemetery, a reptile-averse mother lets her son adopt a snake, and aging queer activists seek divinity. These are stories that ask: how strong is the tether keeping us here? How does the certainty of death animate our lives? Throughout the many microclimates of Oregon, the collection navigates themes of belonging, connection, the constructs of gender, and how adults and children understand one another. These stories are full of families trying to be families, and people in all phases of life reckoning with their reasons for living. With scenery and interiority that echo each other, and characters that read Camus, Fanon, and De Beauvoir, Annihilation for Beginners is slyly philosophical and darkly funny at every turn.