Three States of Rice, award-winning author Gayle Brandeis' first collection of stories, explores the strange, tender, and often unruly ways people move through the world. These pieces slip between the everyday and the uncanny—a marriage unsettled by a tree, a mother wrestling with desire she can’t name, a support group for people whose skin has turned blue. The settings shift—Bali, a quiet Midwestern kitchen, the interior rooms we don’t talk about—but the emotional terrain stays sharp and alive.