Broken Abroad

by Rasmenia Massoud

BROKEN ABROAD is a collection of stories about nine different Americans in Europe. They are not searching for traces of their ancestors. They’re searching for themselves, for the meaning of home and the road forward. A woman cuts the resemblance to her mother away from her flesh. A grieving sister tries to honor her twin brother, whose ashes she carries in her pocket. Survivors of a mass shooting find refuge in a fairy tale. These are stories of the lost, damaged and grief-stricken who have run far away from home, to another country, only to find that life and death will follow them everywhere.

151 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

Rasmenia Massoud was born just outside of Washington D.C. somewhere during the era of Hunter S. Thompson vs. Nixon, but never lived there. She just happened to be in the area. She grew up in Colorado where she made a living with both blue and white collars at various times in her life before deciding that collars are not good, and that writing stories was very good.

In addition to spending several years in various Colorado towns, she has also lived in Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, England, Paris, and the French countryside; traveling to a number of states and countries in between. All the while, thinking deeply about the places and the people she encounters, and writing things down. She looks for the cracks, the scars under the flesh, gathers them up and molds them into stories in an effort to understand what fascinates, confuses and infuriates her the most: human beings.

Rasmenia Massoud is the author of the short story collections HUMAN DETRITUS, BROKEN ABROAD, and YOU DON’T SEE ANY OF THIS. Dozens of her stories have been published online and in print, including The Foundling Review, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Literary Orphans, Sunlight Press, The Molotov Cocktail, Full of Crow, Flash Fiction Offensive, Black Heart Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Big Pulp, and Underground Voices. Her novella, CIRCUITS END, published by Running Wild Press in 2019, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Rasmenia blogs semi-regularly about the awkwardness, frustration and joy of expatriation, food, the craft of writing, and the learning curves that come from being a broken, awkward, and dysfunctional human. She currently lives in southern England with her husband, their loyal chocolate lab and mischievous feline sidekick.

Reviews

[Rick Bylina · Rating 5 out of 5]

BROKEN ABROAD by Rasmenia Massoud is a book of nine well-played journeys of people abroad, searching for themselves or meaning to their existence. It is an overlooked 5-star gem of a book that digs deep into each of the main characters, and then digs a bit more as the author mines for what is the root of each person's existence and what they are trying to resolve. Unlike other deeply introspective short story writers whose stories or characters too often end up without fulfillment, creating a downward spiral look at life, Rasmenia has some stories that provide a hopefulness at the end of the life search being analyzed. To be sure there is heartbreak, but there is an embracement of our differences in most stories that, while even in tragedy, provide a hopeful boost for the human spirit. For short story readers, this is a book that should be read.

[Susan Toy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author was a very pleasant discovery! I was drawn by the subject of ex-pats living abroad - or of mostly making a bad time of living abroad. But it was the writing that grabbed me from the get-go in this too-brief collection of short stories. Massoud is precise, determined, and articulate in the way she tells these stories set in England, Ireland, Paris, Greece. The reader cares about these broken characters, though, understanding exactly how they ended up this way, and pities them. It's hard to choose a favourite story, but if I had to, "Scattered Among So Many Dead Poets" would be at the top of the list followed closely by all the rest.