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Connections, Purpose, and Belonging
New Days weaves ten unforgettable stories of love, loss, ambition, and resilience, revealing how a city continually transforms while the human longing for connection remains timeless. Why did you choose a short story collection rather than a single continuous narrative to tell the city’s story?
These stories have been brewing in the back of my mind over the last few years, as I slowly approached my 20th year of living in New York City. I had considered fleshing out one or two of them into their own novels, but it became clear that the truest way to pay tribute to New York’s unique history, impressive diversity, constant transient change, and ever-evolving culture was to celebrate a variety of moments across the distinctions of particular eras. Despite each chapter taking place in a particular historical corner of New York’s legacy, they do offer commonality of experiences people often find while living in this complex metropolis. Many New Yorkers can relate to the emotional themes imbued in each chapter, whether that’s the idea of first coming here and the familiar home and family we leave behind, our initial arrival and assimilation into a new world, the challenging search for a new identity as we try to set roots here, the blending of perspectives when we share our lives with people from completely differing backgrounds, or the social bonds we try to hold dear as the environment around us perpetually transforms. While working on my longer novels, New Days was always something I came back to from time to time to add another chapter or experience. A unique form of journaling my life here through allegory and historical reflection. I felt that the short story collection format was the truest way to say that all of these reflections had their distinct value, rather than focusing on a single one to expand above the others.
Why do you believe the search for belonging remains such a powerful theme across different generations and historical circumstances?
Humans are social creatures, and we’re always measuring our existence across connections, purpose, and belonging. But New York is an exceptionally special place in that regard, because compared to other cities whose identities are tied to heritage, tradition, or particular industries, New York’s brand has always been about reinvention of self, fresh start opportunities, and carving out a path for new dreams. We mostly all came here from somewhere else. The population ebbs and flows, perpetually supplemented by waves of new arrivals. We have to fit into the city’s pace and progress, but also add our own elements as new ingredients to the overall soup. That dynamic churns our need to belong, to understand ourselves, to seek meaning in our routines and forward momentum. It’s what makes New York so distinct, challenging, and glorious at the same time. Even if we left somewhere else in dissatisfaction, we still have to figure out what that means for our lives in the new frontier we chose.
What inspired the inclusion of black-and-white illustrations, and how do you see them contributing to the reading experience?
The images were an extension of those common themes across such starkly different historical eras. I could have opted for something colorful, or a distinct style that reflected each time period. But the black-and-white consistency and familiar design echoed those recurring experiences that make the New York story so innately understood by anyone who’s spent time here.
Do you envision exploring additional periods of New York’s history or developing similar collections centered on other places?
To be honest, the more I researched different times in this city’s development, the more I realized I probably could have written several more chapters. Or kept this project going indefinitely. But the combination of wanting to finish my larger novel projects and also accepting that all authors eventually have to pick an end point to their work for fear of getting lost in the ceaseless editing process helped me keep it to a neat 10 chapters spanning the entirety of New York’s heritage. As for writing something similar about a different city… that would feel dishonest to me. I know New York. I’ll let someone who knows Rome, Tokyo, or São Paulo write about their corner of the world.
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Between those two mornings: a Lenape leader trades a forest for his people’s survival, a revolutionary soldier is kept alive by his friend’s humor, a boy in Five Points carries two histories but belongs to neither, a man invents a device that could save lives but finds no one willing to spend four dollars to buy it, a con artist’s son mistakes strict instruction for love, a pair of spies spend an afternoon lying to their governments to keep a stranger breathing, a protestor tries to bond with the officer driving her to an uncertain fate, and dear friends stroll a riverbank on the day the sky changed.
Ten stories. Ten echoes of New York, and the magic that survives every century of change.
New Days
Roy Klabin’s New Days is a moving and imaginative collection of ten interconnected-by-theme stories that capture the restless spirit of New York City across more than a thousand years. Beginning in 1036, long before Manhattan became the crowded metropolis we recognize today, and reaching into an imagined future in 2056, Klabin takes readers on a journey through a city that’s constantly reinventing itself. Each story introduces new characters facing moments of uncertainty, ambition, loss, or discovery, with New York serving as the enduring presence that connects their experiences. It’s an inspired approach to storytelling, giving the city a personality shaped by the countless people who’ve called it home. From untouched forests and colonial settlements to revolutionary battlefields, immigrant neighborhoods, and modern streets, New Days explores how a place can change almost beyond recognition while retaining something unmistakable about its character.
One of the collection’s greatest strengths is its ability to make sweeping historical transformations feel deeply personal. Klabin brings readers close to people whose private struggles reflect the larger forces reshaping their world. An ambitious young man searching for belonging in nineteenth-century Five Points, an inventor confronting the harsh realities of industrial progress, and two unlikely confidants navigating the political tensions of the Cold War all offer distinct windows into the human experience. Their circumstances differ enormously, yet their hopes and fears feel familiar. Klabin understands that history is experienced through individual lives, through friendships, difficult decisions, family obligations, and the longing to make something meaningful of the time we’re given. His characters are often caught between the comfort of what they know and the possibilities of what lies ahead, making their stories engaging even when the historical setting is far removed from our own.
There’s also a wonderful visual quality to Klabin’s writing. Forests breathe, rivers carry memories, and city streets pulse with the energy of generations. His descriptions are rich with sensory details, allowing readers to experience New York through its changing sounds, smells, architecture, and atmosphere. The atmospheric black-and-white illustrations accompanying the stories add another dimension, reinforcing the sense of moving through a living historical album. Klabin’s writing frequently turns philosophical, especially when his characters grapple with identity, loyalty, progress, and the meaning of home. Some passages linger deliberately over these ideas, inviting readers to consider how personal convictions are tested by changing circumstances. There’s a compassionate curiosity running throughout the collection, particularly in the way Klabin explores opposing perspectives. People act from competing beliefs, imperfect understanding, and deeply human desires, and their encounters reveal how much can change when someone makes the effort to truly see another person’s world.
What makes New Days especially resonant is its understanding of New York as both a physical place and an emotional inheritance. The city offers opportunities, demands sacrifices, creates unlikely connections, and leaves its imprint on people long after they’ve moved on. Klabin’s affection for New York is unmistakable, but it’s an affection that embraces the city’s contradictions, its extraordinary beauty, its painful history, its chaos, and its endless appetite for reinvention. The collection’s movement from the distant past into a speculative future gives its central questions added significance: What do we carry forward? What deserves to be preserved? And how do we find hope when the world around us changes? These questions give the stories a shared emotional foundation and make the book feel especially relevant to anyone who’s ever watched a familiar place evolve or wondered where they truly belong. Thoughtful, evocative, and filled with affection for the people who give a city its soul, New Days is a memorable meditation on change, resilience, and human connection. In New Days, Roy Klabin reminds us that New York’s greatest landmarks aren’t its buildings, but the lives, dreams, and memories of the people who make it home.
Pages: 115 | ASIN : B0HHTF3S2M
Faithless Friends and Replacement Lovers: Short Stories About Love and Loss
Faithless Friends and Replacement Lovers is a collection of short stories about the messy, complicated, and sometimes sweet intersections of love, loss, loyalty, and self-discovery. The tone shifts from historical drama to whimsical fable to quiet contemporary reflection, but the heartbeat across the book stays the same. Each story looks at how people cling to one another, fail each other, and try again. Reading it felt like moving through a gallery of relationships, each framed a little differently but sharing a common light.
I was surprisingly moved by how earnest the writing is. Horst leans into classic storytelling styles, almost old-world at times, especially in stories like Rosalyn’s journey away from her “father the general” and the richly voiced tales that read like folklore. There is a simplicity to the prose that makes the emotional turns hit harder. Sometimes the characters feel like archetypes. Other times, they feel painfully relatable. I liked that the author doesn’t rush to explain the lessons. She lets the stories sit with you so you can decide what they mean in your own life.
What stood out most, though, was the author’s underlying curiosity about why we choose the people we choose. Some stories felt like gentle warnings. Others felt like quiet invitations to look inward. And a few caught me off guard, offering moments that were tender or humorous or unexpectedly sharp. The book lives in that space between longing and clarity, where love is both desire and discipline. I appreciated that. It felt honest, even when the characters themselves were fumbling through their own illusions.
This is a collection for readers who enjoy literary short fiction with a reflective bent, especially those who like stories about relationships, imperfect, hopeful, and sometimes heavy. If you appreciate narrative variety within a unified emotional theme, this book will land warmly. And if you’ve ever wondered about your own faithfulness to the people in your life, these stories will give you plenty to think about.
Pages: 211 | ASIN : B0G4HXJF39
Aliens Venmoed Me a Trillion Dollars: The Short Story
Daniel Lawrence Abrams’ Aliens Venmoed Me a Trillion Dollars is a wild, brainy, satirical sci-fi romp that fuses conspiracy theory, first contact, government paranoia, and millennial tech cynicism into a sharp and hilarious short story. It follows Doug, a skeptical YouTuber known for debunking alien myths, and Lena, a brilliant but sidelined astronomer, as they inadvertently find themselves caught in a secret first contact scenario. After a mysterious message, a virus that fries the NSA’s servers, and a string of tragicomic mishaps, including a laser accident involving two federal agents, the couple ends up hiding the evidence and receiving a trillion-dollar alien payout. It’s a tale of proof, power, and what happens when the biggest revelation in history is too dangerous to share.
I laughed a lot. Abrams has this gift for taking a ridiculous premise and grounding it with sharp dialogue and characters who feel real, even when they’re making impossible choices. Doug is a lovable cynic, Lena’s a powerhouse of intellect and heart, and the alien interactions were absurd in the best way. The writing is punchy and fast-paced. I loved the way it leaned into modern tech quirks like FaceTime calls, encrypted clouds, streaming culture, while also throwing in hard sci-fi themes. The pacing kept me on my toes, and I never knew if I was about to chuckle, gasp, or furrow my brow in existential dread. It felt like Black Mirror collided with The X-Files and got notes from Arrested Development.
At times, the sheer amount of pop culture references and winks to the audience took me out of the moment. The breakneck shifts, from deadpan jokes to moral panic to murder cover-ups, could be jarring. But Abrams makes it work. The heart of this story is two people trying to do the right thing when reality breaks all its own rules. And while the aliens remain mysterious, their impact on human lives is very personal and messy, exactly how first contact should feel in our chaotic world.
I’d recommend Aliens Venmoed Me a Trillion Dollars to fans of sci-fi with a sense of humor, people who love a good government conspiracy gone haywire, or anyone who’s ever screamed “what the hell is going on” during a Zoom call. If you like your fiction fast, funny, and full of heart with a layer of “we are definitely not ready for this,” then this story’s for you.
Pages: 60 | ASIN : B0FHCN6H6G
