The Future Never Lasts

A collection of short stories that are finger on the pulse of our individual and collective secrets, exploring the cost of hiding them or trying to share them. Some, like the protagonists in "It's Usually This Dark By Now" and "A Crime of Opportunity," can't afford the price tag on those secrets. Others, like the history-haunted veteran in "This Time Comes From That Time" or the teenage narrator in "Mountain," swallow them whole. A few, like the husband and wife in "Augmented Finality" and the three couples in "Ten Things You Don't Know About Me," make uneasy peace with those secrets. Rich characters and a literary style make this a go-to for lovers of short fiction.

Philllip Gardner

Phillip Gardner is a professor of English at Francis Marion University. His short stories have won awards from the South Carolina Fiction Project, the Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open, and the Pushcart Prize. With original appearances in journals,including the North American Review, New Delta Review, LIT, Interim, The Chattahoochee Review, and others, his stories have been anthologized into four collections by Bitingduck Press/Boson Books: Someone To Crawl Back To (2003), Somebody Wants Somebody Dead (2012), AVAILABLE LIGHT (2013), and THE FUTURE NEVER LASTS (2016).