Repetition
by Peter Handke | 
Short Letter, Long Farewell
by Peter Handke | 
Slow Homecoming
by Peter Handke | 
On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House
by Peter Handke | 
The Afternoon of a Writer
by Peter Handke | 
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
by Peter Handke | 
Take Me With You
by Catherine Ryan Hyde | 
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo |
Anne of Windy Poplars
by Lucy Maud Montgomery | 
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes | 
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson | 
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by David Eggers | 
2666
by Roberto Bolano | 
Buying the Farm
by Kimberly Conn | 
Flight Behavior
by Barbara Kingsolver | 
Harbor of the Heart
by Katherine Spencer | 
We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates | 
Everyman
by Philip Roth | 
The Book of Ruth
by Jane Hamilton | 
South of Broad
by Pat Conroy |
The time is an unspecified modernity, the place possibly Europe. Absence follows four nameless people -- the old man, the woman, the soldier, and the gambler -- as they journey to a desolate wasteland beyond the limits of an unnamed city.