In these seven stories set in Alaska and New Mexico, Detroit and Chicago, Andre Miftaraj gives us characters who encounter situations in the physical world, and sometimes beyond the physical world, that through danger and heartbreak deliver them to someplace strange. There Were Bears and Rumors of Bears explores spiritual injury and recovery through stories that are both haunting and frightening and that depict the profane and sacred, the mundane and non-ordinary aspects of experience, and find the bass note, the truth that hums beneath it all.