Lucky Tomorrow

Lives of longing and resilience, searching and belonging in a debut story collection from a memoirist and renowned advocate for change

For a Lucky Tomorrow Buy a Flower Today. Is it true? a prospective customer asks. About the luck? “Absolutely!” Felma says. Flowers, she knows, are all that’s anchored in this world, even if not for long, and like others in these luminous stories, Felma knows what it is to be rootless. In Lucky Tomorrow, Deborah Jiang-Stein presents an unforgettable cast of characters dreaming of redemption, purpose, and connection in a wounded yet beautiful world.

A young girl stuck working at her family’s candy stand. A former priest trapped on a crowded train. A prisoner robbed of the book she’s been writing. A father haunted by his broken family. A woman confined to a psych ward. A reverend caring for her dying housemate. And Felma, a flower vendor, searching for the daughter she gave birth to while in prison, who was swiftly bundled away. Felma’s story leads us in, through, and around the others—a central beating heart for these lives on the fringes, where Jiang-Stein finds a singular, tenacious humanity.

The stories in Lucky Tomorrow move through settings drawn from the path of the author’s own life: Seattle, where she grew up after being born in an Appalachian prison; Tokyo, where she once lived; the Twin Cities, where she currently resides; and the American South, where she travels for much of her advocacy work with women in prison. Pushing the boundaries of genre, Jiang-Stein delicately layers the stories of these outcasts, eccentrics, and visionaries, gathering them in from the shadows with remarkable empathy and candor, laying bare our shared sorrows and joys.

Deborah Jiang-Stein is an award-winning writer, public speaker, collaborator, and author of the memoir Prison Baby. She is founder of the unPrison Project, working with and mentoring people in prisons to build life skills.

Contents

Author’s Note

Everywhere at Once

Stiff Licorice

Except for the Sea

The Big Wave

Aimless, Forgetting

Devoured

No Regrets

The Bottle Duster

Fountain of Redemption

French Opera, Chocolate, and Statues

I Figure a Flower

Moment of Truth

Destined for Fame

Fingers

Esther Levin, Undefeated: Yesterday

The Chosen One

Edwin in the Ring

The Last Haircut

Esther Levin, Undefeated: Tomorrow

Bone

Welded Zipper

Bees and Honey

The List

Might Tip Over

Inventive and Meant to Be

Dreams and High Hopes Wrapped in an Old Trench Coat

Esther Levin, Undefeated: Today

Dear Baby Girl

Number Four

Always There

Edge of the Pond

Spiritual Torments

Ashes to Ashes

Afterword