Chance to Fade & Other Stories: Coming October 14th, 2025
This collection explores the lives of individuals pushed to the brink of what they think is possible, blending literary and magical realist styles.
A man wins the lottery but becomes obsessed with the notion that hitting improbable odds could also work against him. An orphan found in a field screams for a month until the sky bursts into flames. Two strangers find themselves surrounded by disasters every time they meet.
These characters find love, navigate grief, and fight against their impulses to avoid repeating past mistakes.
In Chance to Fade, a man struggles to distinguish hallucinations from his surroundings, while his young neighbor tries to convince her parents that reality might not be as rigid as they believe. Drawings come to life, snow falls in the middle of summer, and the dead refuse to stay dead.
What people are saying…
“Josh Rank shows a boundless, tender understanding of the small anxieties that loom large enough to consume us. The stories in Chance to Fade are centered around a heartbreaking question: who could we be to each other if we could see each other true? Rank shows us his answer, and in this way, we’re a little bit closer to our own. These stories are gems.”
~ Zach VandeZande, author of Liminal Domestic and Lesser American Boys
“The stories in Josh Rank’s Chance to Fade & Other Stories do exactly what good fiction is supposed to do: engage, entertain, challenge, and surprise. Rank excels at creating compelling characters, putting them in unique situations, and letting the sparks fly. The centerpiece is the novella-length title story, in which all of the author’s talents shine. Put Chance to Fade & Other Stories on your list of must-read books.”
~ Chuck Augello, Contributing Editor, Cease Cows and author of The Revolving Heart and Talking Vonnegut: Centennial Interviews and Essays
“Rank is a master at finding stories in that difficult-to-locate space between mundanity and magic, where everything feels both familiar and unsettling. I found this collection very moving, fun, and consistently surprising. A wonderful book.”
~ Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac
“Josh Rank’s Chance to Fade and Other Stories is a breathtaking exploration of the ways luck and chance affect our lives. The characters in these stories are real and broken and searching for answers in an unforgiving world in which they’re also looking for agency, control. On the flipside of that equation, Rank has complete control of his craft in this collection. There aren’t two stories here that function the same way. Each piece presents unique perspectives, structures, voices, and most importantly, ways to punch the reader in the gut. Sprinkled with beautifully speculative weirdness in all the right ways, Chance to Fade is at once familiar and surprising, and I had to force myself to savor Rank’s language, lest I blaze through the collection in one sitting.”
~ Cody Shrum, Identity Theory Fiction Editor, Author of Green Acre and Oakaville