"Here I Am" is a collection of seven stories about loss and our capacity for self-deception. In settings as diverse as an egg factory, a mental hospital and the border of Zaire, these stories deal with lives that have taken a disturbing and unexpected turn. The storytellers include: a sardonic trial lawyer confronting her mortality, a young girl whose unusual bond with her twin brother is tested by their father's incomprehensible act, a newlywed at odds with his wife who discovers the price of marital peace, a teenage rebel forced to reconsider her corrupting influence on a younger brother, a...