An academic encounters unusual findings. A too-kind school teacher gets drawn into a drama not of his making. Ambitious filmmakers go in search of (mis)adventure. Children encounter puberty. Cross-continental lovers slowly drift apart.

In nine beautifully realized stories, Kelly charts the complex psychological journeys of everyday people, fumbling for one another across divides of culture, age, gender, class, sexuality, and race. Meaty and cliché-rupturing, A Bed on Bricks offers difficult but profound truths about human nature and relationships, driven by characters as rich and diverse as the African landscapes they inhabit.