Discombobulated: Collected Short Stories

Reflecting experiences gained while teaching in England, Italy, Korea, and Turkey, author Katherine Baccaro presents an eclectic collection of twenty-four short stories. The tales delve into one family’s dysfunction, the difficulties of dating in Manhattan, and the mysteries of love.

Discombobulated explores a variety of everyday themes and pulls on human emotions. In “Borborygmus,” the prim and proper thirty-seven- year-old Dermot McGreevy feels humiliated when he develops an embarrassing ailment. In “The Department of Nosology,” two thirteen-year- old girls suffer the consequences after they begin cataloging the noses of the townspeople. “The Census” explores the feelings of tourists in Turkey as they learn they will be banished to their hotel room for a day while the country conducts its census.

From the comic to the sad, from real life to imagined landscapes, and from nostalgia and memories to suppositions and lies, Discombobulated offers a diverse collection of stories offering insight into the human condition.