The stories in Jen Michalski's new collection reveal an America in which ideas of genuine community ring false and the spiritual backbone of family life is damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Characters, many of them queer Gen-Xers of a certain age, find themselves looking?often desperately?for a way to understand the lives they've lived and a way to move forward with at least the possibility of future happiness. In "Long Haul," a gay man visits his...