A thread of sorrow weaves its way through Farriella’s anthology. In stories set in common realms of society—the workplace, a daily commute, a character’s parents’ house—Farriella often examines the elements of grief and discontent in his characters’ lives. For example, in “Binary,” a young man takes a trip to the emergency room, where he experiences both physical pain and disappointment with his increasing emotional distance from his girlfriend. In “Unhumanness,” a young man named Leo lives with parents and tries to play tennis while feeling increasingly desensitized to the world around him. Leo, who lives with his parents, thinks about their daily lives: “Mom, he imagined…chatted with some guy in Latvia, who sent her heart emojis the way her husband never could.” A major theme throughout Farriella’s work is suicide and suicidal ideation, as in “Noose Tattoo,” in which one man’s uncle shows up at his door with a tattoo of a noose on his neck and a 6-foot rope in his hand; his relative...
