This debut compilation of 15 tales, often driven by unlikely premises, works hard to upend readers’ assumptions. “My Son, David,” for example, centers on a young boy’s unsettling plea to leave his bedroom window open—and allow access to monsters that only he can see: “They need to come back or they can’t go home.” Many tales’ premises carry stark consequences, including the risk of damnation, as when an alluring hitchhiker tells the overeager buyer of “Jeremy’s New Car,” “Well, you make nothing in hell, right? So, to make that money, you’ve gotta work a pretty long time.” In other cases, the price doesn’t mean risking life or limb, but continuing to carry the weight of an unrealized dream—a fate that ensnares an obsessive hunter in “The Majestic, but Elusive, Rhino-Elephant” and an overly ambitious couple scrambling for an unobstructed view of Lake Ontario in “The Views Are Wonderful”: “Being underwater is a terrible thing, whether in the lake, or on dry land seven stories up.” The overall effect, in the best of these tales, is a deft blend of Twilight Zone–style irony and Ernest Hemingway–like economy, as in “Rachel,” whose final twist brings down the curtain on a story within a story. Other works seem closer to sketches, although they’re still served up with economical flair. “The Hand That Claps Last, Claps Loudest,” for instance, seems like a setup to the dirty joke about “opportunities that are presented and taken away” during a torrid sexual encounter, yet it only takes 250 words to make its point. The stories’ lessons would be lost or muddled in lesser hands, but they’re clearly imprinted with the author’s style and raise expectations for future offerings.