{"product_id":"newengland","title":"New England","description":"\u003cp\u003eA traffic cone is orbiting Neptune in northern Maine. The state has put a truck beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is how \u003cstrong\u003eNew England\u003c\/strong\u003e handles the impossible: somebody arrives early, places an amber light near it, and begins an argument about jurisdiction. In Salem, a tour guide who tells visitors there were never any witches finds another version of herself living upstairs. At Quabbin, the four towns drowned for Boston’s water return during an hour the Office of Consequence has been hiding. Rhode Island’s costume jewelry develops a mineral harder than every story told about who made it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen Gloucester loses fifty feet. The distance opens between the city and Dogtown, and fishermen, dogs, ice workers, widows, and roofs begin occupying the same impossible edge. Nobody responds with wonder for long. Boats still need ice. People still go missing. Somebody’s brother is on the wrong side complaining about fuel prices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese stories understand New England as a place where history is intimate, profitable, shameful, and standing directly behind you while you explain it to tourists. The humor is local and the consequences are not. What returns is rarely what the town advertised.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eWhat it feels like to read\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExpect precise local history, audacious anomalies, sharp comedy, and endings that land on human choice instead of explanation. The stories are eerie without becoming vague and moving without turning sentimental.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eThree stories inside\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOne Mile from the Sun: Maine’s roadside solar system becomes physically accurate, which is bad for the road and worse for the Sun.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThere Were Never Any Witches: Salem’s preferred story creates another city where the accusation was true.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003c!--[endif]--\u003eThe Hour the Office Kept: Quabbin’s drowned towns return and demand the hour erased with them.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuy \u003cstrong\u003eNew England\u003c\/strong\u003e for the orbital traffic cone. By the time the absent Sun weighs nine pounds, it will no longer be the strangest thing in the book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Reality Services Office","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54076780544184,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0978\/4459\/2824\/files\/TPW_New_England.png?v=1789238999","url":"https:\/\/realityservicesoffice.com\/products\/newengland","provider":"Reality Services Office","version":"1.0","type":"link"}