Handyman

James Ypsilanti is serving an unusual prison sentence—one with no visible guards, no obvious escape route, and seemingly endless access to food and supplies. When the heating system fails, he turns his own hardwood door into firewood, only to have a cheerful carpenter replace it and calmly cite the rules. Their ongoing battle pits Jim’s practical ingenuity against an institution that seems designed to thwart common sense.

Between chopping doors and eating prepackaged meals, Jim retreats to an escape tunnel beneath his cell, where he can dream of freedom beyond the prison’s impenetrable walls. He is also haunted by the memory of Margie, the woman who begged him to kill her, and by the troubling certainty that he is being left alone for a reason. Wry, inventive, and unsettling, this science-fiction story follows one resourceful inmate as he searches for a way to survive a system that has anticipated everything—except perhaps him.