"Occupations is a feast of language and imagination. Sumptuous and exuberant, laconic and devastating, it plunges the reader into the complexities of life's middle part, from which she could only escape on a hot air balloon ride to no where. I fell in love with every story in this book." -Olga Zilberbourg, Like Water & Other Stories "The stories in Occupations have a strange charm that defies narrative logic. In them, eccentricity and whimsy appear for readers' enjoyment, but their gradual effect is unnerving. Around the surreal comic streak in each story runs the filigree of mania. Mantzaris's characters seem so composed, so manicured that we lean in closer to hear them out as they come unhinged. Something about them fills me with wonder and dread." -Joshua Peralta, 3rd & Orange