A Place in the World - (Drue Heinz Literature Prize) by Bill Gaythwaite (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

The eleven stories in A Place in the World are character-driven portrayals of various lives transformed by random events or twists of fate. A young woman living on the coast of Maine confronts her painful past when her little brother comes to visit after being released from rehab, a hopeless gay hustler, in for the long con, instead finds himself falling in love while vacationing in Denmark, a failed New York City actor afraid of commitment goes on a comic rant and embraces an epiphany while cat-sitting for a friend. In separate, first-person narratives, a struggling husband and wife take turns describing the impact of a scandalous crisis in their marriage, a settled suburban dad arrives at a beach house for the weekend, only to realize he robbed one of the other houseguests thirty-four years earlier. In this poignant, engaging collection, Gaythwaite offers compassion and surprising optimism while celebrating astonishing resilience in the face of life's persistent challenges.

Review Quotes

In the tradition of Chekhov, Bill Gaythwaite writes stories about outwardly unremarkable people with remarkable inner lives. Funny, smart, intermittently heartbreaking, the stories in A Place in the World eschew literary pyrotechnics and privilege the art of storytelling. A fine collection.--David Leavitt

Bill Gaythwaite's revelatory collection makes me fall in love with reading again. So immersive are these sharp, quick-witted, and intricately observed stories that, in fact, they make me forget I was reading at all. Amaster at conveying emotions, Gaythwaite is particularly gifted at evoking the ones which are usually lower pitched -- nostalgia, regret, and longing -- making them as loud, palpable, and dramatic as the more chest-thumping emotions of rage and anger. Maybe that's because these stories aren't so much about loss or the past but the necessity to face them in order to move on. Not that it's easy. Often, these characters come from small towns and small lives best left behind and forgotten, and as they bet on themselves and seek bigger lives in other places, they sometimes find that they must make choices that betray themselves and others for reasons that are heartbreakingly human. A moving, incisive collection of big-hearted stories that reverberate well past their reading.--Caroline Kim, author of The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories

These are captivating stories that reveal how intertwined we really are with our past selves. A fantastic collection about facing up to the ghosts of our mistakes and our fears, and how our secrets refuse to let us forget who we were and what we've done.--Manuel Muñoz, author of What You See in the Dark and The Consequences and judge of the 2025 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

About the Author

Bill Gaythwaite is the 45th Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner. His short fiction has appeared in Subtropics, Chicago Quarterly Review, Willow Springs, South Carolina Review, Puerto del Sol, and many other publications. Gaythwaite's debut novel, Underburn, was published by Delphinium Books in 2023. Three of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Gaythwaite is currently assistant director for special populations at Columbia Law School. He lives in New Jersey with his partner.