Excerpt from Yr Dead by Sam Sax, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When at last I die my xylem floods with all these stories at once and I'm so full I break into scripture, into sweat, into four unique seasons.


I'm wearing a sweatshirt that says usa. It's red and the text across the chest is blue and white. I buy it off a street vendor, and even though it's only 9.99 I offer him the whole contents of my wallet. Nod my head up and down at his look of surprise. I unbutton that man's expensive shirt with its elegant French cuffs and stand there a moment, shirtless on the street. No one looks twice. I try folding the garment neatly but it keeps catching the wind so instead just lay it on top of a trash can in case anyone else might want it. I watch it fill and deflate as if a line of ghosts are passing through it. It's February, and the weather is in terrible heat. Central Park's spilling over with families like a net filled with some species of iridescent fish. The light is light but not enough. I lift the sweatshirt over my head and put my arms through it how you'd dress a child. For a moment, my whole head is under the cheap garment, and it's almost as if I'm in a different world – a place where nothing is hurt, just a head moving slow through its red-cloth portal – and maybe on the other side we'll find a country safe and orderly, perfectly formed as an egg. But my head emerges through the hole, my arms slide through the sleeves, and I'm still here. Midtown, with all these two-legged fishes moving around me, staring into their phones. Tourists ordering hot dogs and snapping selfies in front of Bergdorf Goodman. People in athleisurewear barking into the same blue-glowing angler headphones. The shops thrive as the world burns, selling expensive nothing: Swarovski crystal chandeliers, computer wristwatches, designer pig-leather hats. I can hear the drums in the near distance. I can feel the accelerant, heaving and sloshing, at the bottom of my bag.

Excerpted from Yr Dead by Sam Sax. Copyright © 2024 by Sam Sax. Excerpted by permission of McSweeney's Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.