The Burning Ground: Stories

Moving from remote, sun-scorched towns to the charged hum of Venice Beach, The Burning Ground is a collection of eight stories populated by men haunted by their past and by their dreams, set against the canvas of California, where beauty and bleakness go hand in hand. In A Thunderstorm in Santa Monica, a man’s unmoored lifestyle is reflected back at him after a long flight. In Black Bear in the Snow, a divorced advertising executive tries to rekindle a relationship with his son. And in the title story, The Burning Ground, a painter is haunted by memories of his former lover. The stories take familiar roles-the deadbeat dad, the drifting divorce, the wayward man-and bring them new emotional depth, peeling back the layers to reveal interiors both unexpected and arresting in their complexity.

Written with a poet’s lyricism and an outsider’s keen eye, Adam O'Riordan’s insightful work paints an intimate portrait of diverse male lives contending with the potential of the West Coast.