An extraordinary poet turns his piercing lens to questions of fate, chance, desire, and toxic masculinity in this compelling collection of short fiction. Randomness and orchestration, coincidence and causality, hunger and emptiness thread their way through these varied stories of friendship, love/not/love, and wounded characters searching for what matters in the end. Paul Juhasz's As If Place Matters holds a stunning omniscience that surprises and delights. A powerful debut. -Rilla Askew, author of Kind of Kin