Asylum

Asylum is a collection of short stories that is focused on a group of friends who grew up on the same block, but have been separated since the death of one of their friends, Rob. Rob is their best friend who died tragically, so each story (besides Twelve Seconds, which happens before the death) shows how the friends deal with life in a group that is now fractured. The stories deal with exile and class issues, each friend is from a family not born in the United States. Each friend not coming from great means. Magical realist, surrealist, and unreliable narrators are embedded in these stories, and are juxtaposed against the physical restraints of the world they all live in.