“…captures the ethos of a particular moment in a young person’s life so well that I felt I was reliving part of my own past. Reminiscent of Max Porter’s Shy and Michael Clune’s Pan, yet wholly unique…”
—Joshua Trent Brown, author of The Walls Are Closing In On Us

Michael is tired. He’s a twenty-something retail employee who probably (definitely) smokes too many cigarettes and wrestles against the logic of his religious upbringing. He craves a genuine experience of free will. Can he ever be fully human? Just once? Please, and thank you.

In a brisk 120 pages, Ricky Allen pulls the reader into a whirlwind where the past and present collapse into psychological and philosophical rumination, all animating a young man’s quest for free will and bodily autonomy. To be here, no, fully human, fully of the world. Perhaps.

ISBN: 9798234123596
Publication Date: August 1, 2026
Distribution: Ingram

Paperback, perfect-bound
120 pages
5 x 8

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