Excerpt from I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Usually, Jeff would make the situation better with his cheerful stories, his jokes about his bad Tinder dates—¬though I guess these were Michelle's jokes. But he isn't around to help this time, and his absence adds a new layer of sadness. This year, my parents make a colorful shitstorm. They cry through Thanksgiving dinner, then break dishes on Christmas. My mother threatens to rip out her hair, and my father stands clothed in a bathtub full of water in an attempt to show us he is drowning. My mother threatens to leave my father and move back to Thailand, though she didn't like her life there to begin with. "You think I liked squatting to go tinkle?" she once asked me. Her alcoholic mother had made her life there hell, but still, she always threatens to move back when the days in Washington get too short.

Excerpted from I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek. Copyright © 2026 by Kim Samek. Excerpted by permission of The Dial Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.