Where Can I Take You When There's Nowhere To Go

In Joe Baumann’s newest collection Where Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go, queer men explore their sense of who they are and what they want, often in worlds that are tilted askew from what we might expect.

Thirteen surreal short stories utilize the strange and the bizarre as a backdrop for explorations of loneliness, queer coming-of-age, self-discovery, and loss. In “We Adore These Bodies Until They Are Gone,” people evaporate when suffering isolation and directionless; in “Happy Birthdays,” characters transform into different ages when they consume particular kinds of cake; and in the titular story, a pair of lonely teenagers come together at a party after one of them gifts the other with a small cloud he has spun out of his own hands. 

Baumann’s tender vignettes of love, anger, grief, and desire are a stunning ode to the places and people that can give us solace within an absurd and chaotic world.

Praise for Where Can I Take You When There's Nowhere To Go,

“In his rich, beautiful short story collection, Where Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go, Joe Baumann accentuates the mysteries of human relationships with a skillful and magical hand. Similar to the work of Aimee Bender and Judy Budnitz, Baumann draws readers into intimate spaces, enabling personal connections through the fantastical access he provides—the magical manifestations of grief and loneliness, love and passion, trauma and shame, solidarity, individuality, and the myriad modes of desire. Within this extraordinary collection, individuals evaporate, conjure clouds, consume whole bodies, harbor additional hearts, and produce blood that sings. Baumann’s stories are layered with humor and heavy with the challenges and triumphs of social and self-acceptance. Where Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go is as original as it is enjoyable to read—a rare combination that should be savored and shared as widely as possible."

— Aaron Tillman, author of Consolation Miracles and Every Single Bone in My Brain

 “In Where Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go, Baumann uses the fantastic to represent with heart-wrenching precision those ‘tangling feelings’ that threaten to destroy his characters. Some evaporate, some sprout roots on their heads, some change into mirrors, and some create clouds with their fingers—not by accident or scientific experiment but because these are phenomena in their worlds that transform and express raw human emotion with determined and sometimes redemptive clarity. Reading this collection means apprehending again and again the hunger of despair, the miracle of love." 

— Maria Brandt, author of All the Words