Present

Edition excerpt from Present (2017): Leslie Stein takes us on a sinuous urban stroll divorced from destination, glimpsing New York City through her open eyes. While she is closing up a bar late at night, she is also an adolescent at a rave in the mountains, an adult grappling with her grandfather's fading memory or at one of her first waitressing jobs. Here, an autobiography is built through memories and moments tied together by loose lines, evoking a beautiful dreamlike yet endlessly relatable glimpse into the world of a thirty-something woman carving out a life for herself, one step at a time.