Chris Ames dissects modern anxiety in his new short story collection

A savage, sideways look at modernity.

This new collection asks: how do we connect in a fractured world?

Acclaimed author Chris Ames returns with I Made This Just for You, a short story collection that The Saturday Paper calls “smart, funny, uncomfortable and thought-provoking.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Happy Mag (@happymagtv)

Set across corporate press junkets, IKEA-filled apartments and online hellscapes, the stories follow characters grappling with designer drugs, beauty matching and reputation rehabilitation; all while navigating a perilous sense of unease.

Praised by authors including Chris Flynn and Briohny Doyle, the collection explores authenticity versus performance, modern parenthood and the absurd intersection of digital and real.

“Hilarious, profound and brilliantly deranged,” writes Josephine Rowe.

Ames asks: how do we measure distance between people, and how do we still draw together despite our broken ways of knowing? Out now.