A haunting excerpt from Chaon’s long awaited short story collection Stay Awake, out this week from Ballantine Books.

In the wake of her mother’s death, eighteen-year-old Claire Bidwell Smith goes traveling in Europe.

An excerpt from Cross’s new short story collection.

Many early reviews have mentioned that your new collection, Stay Awake, is disturbing and depressing. One Amazon review says: “For those wanting to float in a dark world of unsettling edges and places you want to leave quickly, I’d highly recommend this book.” Another Amazon reader asks: “I would just like to know what, if anything, makes Dan Chaon laugh.”

I do not know this word, ‘laugh.’ What is it? The sound of this word has an unsettling edge that I find disturbing and depressing. It makes me want to leave this place quickly.

Why do you think the word “dark” appears so often in the reviews of your new collection?

I think they mean “dank.”

Your stories include a family burnt to death in a mysterious fire, a kid whose parents commit suicide, deadly car accidents, and a murderous mother, among other grim subjects. Two pieces feature dead babies. Do any of your stories look at the lighter side of things?

Ah, but of course there’s a lighter side to dead babies. I once heard a wonderful joke about dead babies when I was a youth attending Sidney Junior High School in Sidney, Nebraska. It goes like this: “How do you unload a pickup truck full of dead babies?”

You wouldn’t think this would be so hard since you spend so much of the day home alone talking to yourself.

That’s true. I, we rather, have had plenty of practice.

So on with it then. What’s new?

The cereal kick I suppose, but you already knew that. I’m going on like three months of this bizarre cereal kick. In fact…I’ll be back in five…

- Half an hour later -

That was longer than five minutes.

Sorry. I have Cowboys and Aliens On Demand. Anyway, yeah, the cereal kick. I’ve been going at it hard for a while now. Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. Honey Bunches of Oats with Raisins. Frosted Cheerios. Mixing and matching. I’ve been trying to cut back as of late, half-bowling it and such. I have an addictive personality and a man can only push his luck so far.

What else is happening in your life? I mean, besides cereal?

The book is happening I suppose. I mean it is happening. It’s a short story collection entitled Fires of Our Choosing.

Is The Rules of Inheritance about how you inherited a bunch of money and acted like a Kardashian?

Sadly, no. It’s more depressing, gritty and uplifting than that. Both of my parents got cancer when I was fourteen. My mother died when I was eighteen and my father when I was twenty-five. I’m an only child and these losses left me very much alone in the world, and going through something that none of my peers had really experienced. The book is kind of a coming-of-age story. It follows me through cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, through various relationships I cultivated with men and with alcohol. It’s definitely a grief memoir, but it’s also a lot more than that. You don’t have to have lost someone to relate to someone who is trying to figure themselves out and fucking up a lot along the way.

Aren’t you kind of embarrassed to publish a memoir?

For a long time the word memoir really made me cringe. When people asked what I was working on, I would go to great lengths to avoid that word. I’m actually a big fan of memoirs, but there can be something really trite and embarrassing about them, especially given our culture’s obsession with the intimate details of other people’s lives.

A novel that Publishers Weekly says “accomplishes the improbable feat of wringing genuine loveliness from unspeakable horror.”

Algonquin’s marketing director assigns REM song titles to future books.

Pearl: Thank you for inviting me to share a meal of Rwandan food and for giving me this chance to interview you. By the way, what am I eating?

Me: You are most welcome. It’s a pleasure to have someone to talk to. Usually, during my writing hours, it’s pretty lonely in here. You are eating isombe—the green stuff—which is made from cassava leaves, a stew made with chicken, tomatoes, cabbages and onions and pili-pili (hot pepper sauce), beans—similar to our pinto beans—and ugali.

Pearl: And what’s this mound of white stuff that looks like paste? Oh – and I’m sorry, but you forgot to give me silverware.

Me: That white stuff is the ugali. It’s a traditional staple in most African countries. In Rwanda, it’s made from cassava flour. In many countries, they use maize flour. Traditionally, food is served from a common bowl. You wash your hands and then everyone dips in. Sharing food in Rwanda is a very bonding experience. It’s a depth of tradition I think we have lost in this country. The ugali is your silverware. You tear off little balls of it (demonstrates) and wrap it around the rest of the food. (food drips up arm). It’s harder than it looks.

Pearl: Did you make all this yourself? Everything is delicious. The tastes are very earthy and rich. And unique – I can taste each of the ingredients.

Me: Well, since this is all virtual reality, yes. In my non-novel existence, I am not much of a cook. In Rwanda, cooking is done on a small charcoal stove called an iziko. It takes patience, love, and a lot of quadricep strength, since you have to squat for long periods of time. I made an omelet once, with my unofficially adopted son. It was quite a production, but it came out delicious.