Nathan Bogmore, the protagonist of the opening story, "The Linguist," is literally learning a new language, studying French verbs in the country, where his artist mother has dragged the family on a "working vacation." Likewise, all Staffel's characters find themselves getting "lessons in another language," the language of adulthood, of danger and opportunity. Circumstances--an enforced relocation, a trip home, the arrival of new neighbors and with them a new best friend--veer these characters towards a trouble they're one step behind understanding. In the mind of Sam Sperry, the contemplative voice at the center of the tour-de-force novella "Natives and Strangers," "It was a big, complicated mess, and the only messes Sam had experience with were the simple ones that got cleaned up with angry voices, a slap on the face, or a sink full of dish soap." Staffel's noir stories are exquisite, gripping observations of lives humbled by the power of the rural land that surrounds them, of people haunted by the enormity of their longings. Their lessons and the language they teach us offer a new and compelling translation of what it means to be a family in the modern world.