“Unstinting and deep, Daddy Issues roils the mirror surfaces of our days with cutting candor and intense, unexpected compassion. Eric Wat’s characters body forth revelatory insight as they emerge from marginalization into hard fought light.”—Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex

“In Daddy Issues Eric C. Wat has written a collection of short stories as profound as they are humorous. In doing so, he deftly challenges conventions while illuminating the resilience of the human spirit. Wat’s intricate storytelling and vivid prose offers us an unvarnished examination of love, loss, longing, and the ties that bind us to one another. An absolutely essential addition to contemporary literature.”—Alex Espinoza, author of The Sons of El Rey

“These stories capture, with insight, humor, and tenderness, what it feels like to have issues of various kinds, to look at oneself squarely and change. There are no heroes here (though perhaps an antihero or two). One walks into an Eric C. Wat story as if into a room where everyone is trying to stay alive, a room filled with quotidian surfaces and charged, transformational depths. Wat’s multigenerational, cross-cultural stories explore the often-tangled perils and pleasures of trust, vulnerability, silence, sacrifice, and love.”—Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness and Thanks for Letting Us Know You Are Alive

“Set against the vibrant yet gritty backdrop of Los Angeles, these stories bring to life the inner worlds of characters who seek—and sometimes stumble upon—meaningful connections. Artists, writers, and everyday Angelenos alike face the thrilling, precarious dance of closeness and longing, each choice reverberating with humor, heartbreak, and revelation. Intelligent without pretense, Daddy Issues captures a nuanced portrait of LA’s mosaic of lives on the edge of change, for anyone who has known the precarious business of intimacy.”—Steven Reigns, author of A Quilt for David and Inheritance