Set against a vast swath of humanity and place, the stories in Once Wild transport us equally to humid fecund tributaries in Amazonas, winter gripped streets of Manhattan, and beyond. A writer in New York eulogizes his father's global legacy, unearthing a haunting secret from their exotic past. A fiery, trailblazing midwife in Texas confronts lingering shadows of a violent event from her youth, striving to reclaim her sense of agency and purpose. A Salvadoran refugee turned lawyer travels to rural Iowa to face a conservative farm family with the painful truth surrounding their son's tragic drowning in Hawaii. An Ohio aircraft engineer wrestles with inner demons when one of his planes goes down fatally in Argentina. An affluent family in Connecticut is thrown into turmoil during the holidays when their youngest son returns home in drag, a bold attempt to reconcile the suicide of his older brother. An agnostic scientist from Sweden finds herself alienated in her marriage when her husband's profound connection with the Divine challenges her paradigm of love and existence. Del llano's characters unleash narratives that are both empathetic and humorous. Each story chronicles our collective and precarious journeys of human resilience and survival.