Almost Tall

In this short story, fourteen-year-old Dinah finds herself plucked from her provincial midwestern ballet class and dropped in her uncle’s glittering New York penthouse. What starts out as a lonely summer quickly becomes a whirl of cocktails and haute couture under the mercurial attention of her uncle’s bombastic and insecure partner, Eddie. With remarkable poise, she struggles against a city that seems determined to turn innocence into cynicism and the young into “strangers to youth.”

Vestal McIntyre, whose award-winning books You Are Not the One and Lake Overturn, were both named Editor’s Choice by The New York Times Book Review, has a reputation among fans for his, “Vibrant tales [that] blend sadness, insight and wry humor” (The Chicago Tribune).