Half an Inch of Water

In Half an Inch of Water, Percival Everett returns with a haunting collection of stories set across the modern American West. Each piece follows people living at the edge of vast landscapes—fathers, daughters, sheriffs, ranchers—whose ordinary days suddenly tilt into the strange. A deaf Native American girl disappears into the desert and is later found unharmed among rattlesnakes. A boy grieving his sister’s death becomes obsessed with catching an impossibly large trout in the creek where she drowned. An elderly woman rides into a snowstorm and glimpses the dog she loved and lost years before.

Again and again, small moments spark deep shifts: a casual comment alters a relationship; a snakebite opens a door to visions; a search for a missing man uncovers an eerie look-alike. Everett uses these brief disruptions to reveal the hidden fears, desires, and mysteries that lie just beneath everyday life.

Spare, unsettling, and beautifully observed, Half an Inch of Water transforms the familiar into something quietly extraordinary, offering stories that linger long after they end.