In Michael Foy’s debut collection, Driving Crazy to the Front Door, many of the stories are set in Surrey’s urban sprawl. The characters face a demolition of love, a type of destruction that forces them to rebuild and, if they can, recoup their losses.

Whether from a failed marriage, a dead mother, or a fatal car crash, each story has some hope and redemption. There is humour too, when three kids cram into a straw-filled chicken coop to hide from an angry farmer, lighting up more than cigarettes. Or you’ll find eighty-two-year-old Nora Allen escaping from the Florence Nightingale hospital, stealing a car, and ordering a Big Mac before continuing down the King George highway to her childhood home to search for her adopted son. Cooper Reynolds is an old widow who might remarry, but first, his estranged, druggie daughter comes home to save his life.

All fourteen stories shine some light on the darkness of the human condition, and in so doing, help us to better understand ourselves, our family, friends and maybe even our enemies. Driving Crazy to the Front Door takes us right up close to loss—not for self-pity or despair, but to offer hope, and reminds us of what it means to be human.