Ball is the thrilling and emotionally provocative debut collection of short fiction by the acclaimed author of the novels Rockaway and A Child Out of Alcatraz and the essay collection Reeling through Life.Ball explores the darker edges of love and sex and death, how they are intimately and often violently connected, with bright, vivid stories set mostly in contemporary Los Angeles. In Cactus,” a young girl comes to fear the outside worl...

“How tragic that this book--set in a Queens, New York, beach town that in real life was devastated by Sandy--has a new relevance. Sarah is a California painter who’s come east for a retreat she hopes will revive her artistic passion. It’s a sheer joy to stay in the company of Ison’s voice. There’s an unlikely relationship at the center, the kind of encounter that could happen only in the summertime suspension of ‘ordinary’ life.” --Karen Russell, O Magazine

Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies looks at how film shapes identity. Through ten cleverly constructed essays, Ison explores how a lifetime of movie-watching has, for better or worse, taught her how to navigate the world and how to grapple with issues of career, family, faith, illness, sex, and love.Cinema is a universal cultural experience, one that floods our senses with images and sounds, a powerful force that influences our perspec...