The Wigmaker, C.E. Coughlan’s new book (Smart Cookie Publishing, webspotter.com/smartcookie), is a collection of fourteen short stories, some of which have previously appeared in Geist and other literary magazines. The stories unfold in ordinary places—on a porch, in a high school, at a funeral, on a kayaking trip—and they involve characters we are told little about; but Coughlan’s writing gives the characters an intimacy and familiarity that is rare and engaging, and her sparse, controlled sentences evoke a sense that a larger meaning lurks behind the seemingly simple stories. The Wigmaker is a beautiful production, hand bound and printed on linen paper, with Sonja Ahlers’s drawn portraits of melancholic women to complement the text. It is published as a limited edition, so one can only hope that a larger press picks up the rights so that many more people can enjoy the book. Read the title story, “Wigmaker,” at geist.com/stories/wigmaker.