The author and her father enjoy talking about the potbellied pig he bought after the death of his mother. It’s easier to discuss a pig—his appetite, his size, how loudly he squeals—than it is to confront the family’s other dark secrets.

There isn’t much to see in tiny Richmond, Indiana, the birthplace and final resting place of Marceline Mae Baldwin, the mild-mannered nurse who became the wife of charismatic preacher Jim Jones.

Two young mothers grapple with isolation and unforgiving terrain in this braided narrative of the American West. Trailblazing 19th century missionary Narcissa Whitman’s efforts to build a home end in tragedy, and more than a hundred years later, fifth-generation Idahoan Debra Gwartney ignores her best instincts and joins her family on an ill-advised Fourth of July rafting trip.

In winter of 1912, as Robert Falcon Scott was striving to be the first to reach the South Pole, six of his men became stranded for 17 months. In this story that ranges from north to south and from past to present, John O’Connor chronicles the group’s efforts to remain not only alive but sane at “Inexpressible Island,” a 9′ x 12’ enclosure they hacked out of the ice, where they remained through the long months of winter darkness.

On a trip to rural Wisconsin—the epicenter of werewolf sightings in the US—Erica Berry searches for the elusive Beast of Bray Road and the local author whose stories have helped keep the legend alive.

Surrounded by his neighbors’ maximalist holiday displays—104 inflatable Christmas decorations in all, with not a repetition among them—Ander Monson ponders the history of spectacle and considers the meaning of community. Then, he orders a two-story-tall Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to stand among the desert plants of his Tucson front yard.

For years, Jill Christman has been waiting for her long-lost lover to communicate with her from beyond the grave. Finally, he walks into her early-morning exercise class, setting her world awhirl.

A not-so-scenic tour of Pittsburgh’s East Hills neighborhood

In vignettes structured through the 22 cards of the Tarot deck’s Major Arcana, a young woman surfs the rough waters of the Pacific, journeys through the Colombian Amazon, hikes through summer in Alaska, hops trains from coast to coast, and wanders the streets of San Francisco.

In September 2012, twenty-five-year-old David Villalobos abruptly dived from a monorail ride into the Siberian tiger pit at the Bronx Zoo. In True Story #2, Steven Church retraces (some of) Villalobos’s steps in an attempt to understand the impulse that drives him—and others like him—to get close to a predator.