The Theory of Light and Matter

A remarkable debut collection of stories from an assured new American voice

Andrew Porter's fiction is thoughtful, lucid and highly controlled . . . He has the kind of voice one can accept as universal - honest and grave, with transparency as its adornment

An exquisite collection. . . [With] hard-won grit and imagination to spare

A true master of the short story, a writer of honesty and plainspoken poetry who knows the human soul in all its light and shadow and harnesses every sentence to the purpose of revealing it

Luminous . . . Porter's writing [is] in direct dialogue with the work of John Cheever and Raymond Carver . . . A memorable debut that honors the history of the short story form while blazing a new trajectory all its own

A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Andrew Porter has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and was nominated for the Frank O'Connor International 
Short Story Award. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, and on NPR's 
Selected Shorts. He teaches at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Andrew Porter's stories offer a stunningly astute vision of contemporary American suburbia, full of tension, heartbreak and emotional complexity - the work of an important new voice. 
 
These ten stories take us across the country - from rural Pennsylvania to suburban Connecticut - and deep into characters struggling to find meaning in their day-to-day lives. A childless couple, craving the affection of an exchange student, fail to set set the boundaries that would keep him safe. And in the title story, a college student looking for her soul mate confronts an impossible choice.

Andrew Porter

This is a beautifully written and immaculately observed portrait of what happens to the splinters of a broken family, and their shared concept of home. Terrific.

Andrew Porter’s poised study of the meaning of love, family and home has a meatier, more suspenseful plot than you’d anticipate.

The Hardings are teetering on the brink. Elson – once one of Houston’s most promising architects, who never quite lived up to expectations – is recently divorced from his wife of thirty years, Cadence. Their grown son, Richard, is still living at home: driving his mother’s minivan, working at a local coffee shop, resisting the career as a writer that beckons him. But when Chloe Harding gets kicked out of her East Coast college, for reasons she can’t explain to either her parents or her older brother, the Hardings’ lives start to unravel. Chloe returns to Houston, but the dangers set in motion back at school prove inescapable. Told with piercing insight, taut psychological suspense, and the wisdom of a true master of character, this is a novel about the vagaries of love and family, about betrayal and forgiveness, about the possibility and impossibility of coming home.

Andrew Porter

Praise for In Between Days

This is a beautifully written and immaculately observed portrait of what happens to the splinters of a broken family, and their shared concept of home. Terrific.

Compelling, perceptive.

Andrew Porter’s poised study of the meaning of love, family and home has a meatier, more suspenseful plot than you’d anticipate.

This is a beautifully written and immaculately observed portrait of what happens to the splinters of a broken family, and their shared concept of home. Terrific.

Compelling, perceptive.

Andrew Porter’s poised study of the meaning of love, family and home has a meatier, more suspenseful plot than you’d anticipate.

This is a beautifully written and immaculately observed portrait of what happens to the splinters of a broken family, and their shared concept of home. Terrific.

Compelling, perceptive.

Andrew Porter’s poised study of the meaning of love, family and home has a meatier, more suspenseful plot than you’d anticipate.

Books by Andrew Porter

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