“The Vandal and Other Stories” is a collection that sprouts at the intersection of humor and earnestness, of connection and desperation. It features unlikely relationships – a man and his father’s God-anointed replacement, a woman and her emotional bodyguard, a washed-up actor and the surrogate baby he steals. It finds characters on planes, in DIY greenhouses, in vintage stores and asks them who they are at their least comfortable, who they’ll become at their strangest. These are stories of parenthood, obsession, queerness, and magic.