How

If every story is born of a question -How did we get here? How do you make your arm do that?-the stories in Geoff Wyss's Howsearch for answers to the mysteries of an astonishing range of characters. The narrator of "How I Come to Be Here at the GasFast" explains why he hasn't left a truck stop in the two days since he scratched a winning lottery ticket. In "How to Be a Winner," a sports consultant browbeats a high school football team with his theory of history and a justification of his failed coaching career. Lost in the mazes they've made of themselves, Wyss's characters search for exits on ground that shifts dizzyingly from humor to pathos, from cynicism to earnestness, from comedy to tragedy, often within the same sentence. Although propelled by a razor-sharp, contemporary voice, Wyss's stories-many set in a New Orleans unknown to television and tourists-have more in common with Chekhov and O'Connor than with "Treme."

Geoff Wyss's first novel, Tiny Clubs, was published in 2007. His stories have appeared in New Stories from the South 2006 and 2009; Image; Glimmer Train; and Tin House. He lives in New Orleans.