Title: How We Do Things Here

Author: Matt Cashion

Publisher / Publication date: Cornerstone Press (February 17, 2026)

Language: English

Format / # of Pages: softcover, e-book, 200 pages

Genre: Short Stories/humorous fiction

ISBN-10: 1968148221

ISBN-13: 978-1968148225

Reviewed by Karl Stewart

Banal life amid chaos

Hold on to your hats. Matt Cashion’s “How We Do Things Here” is consistently surprising and kept me turning pages in order to watch his characters, arrogant and self-loathing, self-righteous and deeply insecure, wounded spiritually and physically, as they descend sighing into their fatalistic failures. Observing this inevitability, story by story, is like watching trains collide. We can see them approaching, we can even see how the wreck could be avoided, but nonetheless, we read on, fascinated yet appalled. Surprisingly, the pain of these flawed characters provides many moments of laugh-out-loud humor.  When Marty promises his wife Maria that he “will do better” we chuckle because we know he will only do worse. He anticipates screwing up, and sure enough, he does. Divorce always seems to lurk just around the corner. Cashion’s characters do not so much interweave as intersect. Their self-absorption and inability to communicate on any level other than the surface, makes their relationships superficial and unsatisfying. Through it all, they plug on, these larger than life, colorful characters, and through their pain and failures, Cashion provides the reader a humorous glimpse at what a world lacking empathy and compassion would look like. Start the book for the laughs. Finish it for the tears.