In the world of the future, people exist in a perpetual state of rehearsing evacuations, and one man’s rehearsal involves leaving his parents behind.

A firespotter knows all too well that where there’s smoke, there’s fire – but fails to spot the blaze that consumes half her family.

Then there’s the Custer impersonator who takes his role in a re-enactment too literally, and too far. The massage therapist who struggles to help a veteran who's biggest regret is tattooed in living detail across his back. The retired CIA operative, now a mother of two, who is still packing heat for the just-in-case scenario that has her trigger finger itching...

With award-winning reportage, memoir, fiction and photography, Granta has illuminated the most complex issues of modern life through the refractory light of literature. Feel the sting of betrayal via new writing by Ben Marcus, Janine di Giovanni, Karen Russell, Samantha Harvey, Colin Robinson, Jennifer Vanderbes, Callan Wink, John Burnside and a host of others, including debut author Lauren Wilkinson, whose heroine moves through decades with the forward lean of Richard Yates and the grace of Garcia Marquez.