Nights Without Rain

Like scenes witnessed through passing windows at night, these fifty stories reveal love and lives realized and destroyed, the mundane terrors and desires of modern life, loneliness, heartache, and hard-won redemption. Through sprawling cities to small desert towns, the players in each tale are you and I, your friend, your enemy, all of us just actors in minuscule films any stranger passing by may see and experience, and perhaps remember for the rest of their lives. From the author of What Lies In Wait and The Cards We Keep, these flashes of fiction explore the strange and desolate landscape of humanity's desire for comfort, for communion, or for something just a little more.

“In Nights Without Rain, James gives the reader glimpses of humanity —from ‘screaming, haranguing Americana’ to ‘a derelict honeymoon of stupid love’—without frills, but with genuine understanding. Nothing sentimental, just the messy, sublime, ridiculous state of being alive.”
– Kate Garrett, editor of Three Drops Press

“Nights Without Rain is a collection that wanders. It peeks into alleys, diners, and bedrooms, revealing what most of us never share. These stories build on each other without ever touching, each nodding at what’s fostered or broken in small moments. James Duncan shows us what uncertainty looks like when we’re all just waiting for rain.”
– Rachel Nix, editor of Cahoodaloodaling

“Reminiscent of Hollywood’s era of classic films, Nights Without Rain hops into the lives of different characters like jumping trains, each searching through giant cities and small towns, capturing snapshots of small lives and inevitable consequences. Duncan is a master of turning words into imagery and directing stories about life and all the “what ifs.” The audience can’t help but sit back and read each scene through to the very end.”
– Hillary Leftwich, editor of Heavy Feather Review