But I kept that night. I kept the way she looked at me afterward, the way her thumb traced circles on mine, the way she said, “You were here. That’s what matters.” ― Alex Diaz-Granados, Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen : A Jim Garraty Story
With Christmas 2025 less than a week away, I know that some of you are hard-pressed to choose the perfect gift for the book lovers on your holiday shopping list. With that in mind, I’d like to recommend the third of my Jim Garraty stories, Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen, a novelette-length companion to my Reunion Duology.
In many ways, Comings and Goings is a miracle in storytelling. Not because I think it’s great – that judgment is for you, the reader, to make – but because of the circumstances of its creation less than two months after I finished Reunion: Coda earlier this year.
As I explained in my Author’s Note in the book:
Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen wasn’t part of the plan.
It emerged—quietly but insistently—from a single flashback in Reunion: Coda. At first, Kelly Moore was just a name. A memory. A girl Jim remembered sharing some Heinekens with on a summer night in 1984. But something about that moment lingered. In scene after scene, her presence kept resurfacing—not loudly, but unmistakably. Like a song you thought you’d forgotten until it plays when you least expect it.
The roots of this story were always there: in the beer Jim shared with his best friend Mark on graduation night, in the kiss from Marty that came too late, in the unspoken ache of not knowing if you were ever really seen. Even in that brief walk across Columbia’s campus—years later—when a familiar face stirs a flood of memory, and Jim wonders if anyone else remembers that night the way he does.
I hadn’t intended to write another short story so soon after finishing the novel. But the idea of Kelly and Jim’s first time wouldn’t let me go. It kept pressing forward until I listened. Until I wrote it.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure if Comings and Goings is a great story. To rephrase a familiar saying, greatness is subjective, and I’m too personally invested in this third tale about Jim Garraty to view it objectively. I do enjoy reading it, especially when I imagine that someone else wrote it. I’m also proud that I experimented with a few new literary techniques while remaining true to the style I adopted in Reunion: A Story and Reunion: Coda.
Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen (A Jim Garraty Story)
Boston, 1984. A party Jim Garraty never wanted to attend. A girl who didn’t look away. A night stitched together by mixtapes, quiet courage, and the ache of choosing to stay.
Jim isn’t chasing romance—he’s just trying to outrun the noise. But when Kelly Moore enters the room with her drink, her Rachmaninoff references, and her uncanny ability to see without pressing, everything shifts. Over cassette tapes and Heineken beer, conversations deepen, touch becomes language, and for the first time, intimacy feels less like performance and more like breath.
Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen is a quietly luminous companion to the Reunion Duology, capturing one night’s transformation from awkward beginnings to the kind of closeness that rewrites your inner dialogue. It’s about music, memory, and the rare kindness of someone meeting you where you are—with patience, humor, and unexpected grace.
This isn’t a story about first love.
It’s a story about the first time you didn’t have to explain yourself.
Selected Reviews
Pooja Gudka’s Review (Amazon Canada)
Alex Diaz-Granados has a real talent for making extremely realistic characters. They don’t feel like two-dimensional characters on paper when you read them. They feel like real people that you can connect with.
Both Jim Garraty and Kelly Moore are characters who are easy to like and enjoy reading about. And they have a wonderful chemistry throughout the book. For the moment at least, they are exactly what the other needs and yearns for.
We have read about Jim Garraty’s experience during high school and after college. But this book focuses on his experience after first finishing high school and moving to a new place for college. The feelings of loneliness, experiencing a lot of change all at once, and finding oneself are something a lot of us go through in that phase of life when we’re still very young adults. Garraty’s character perfectly encompasses that.
When he attends a party he wasn’t excited about going to, he meets Kelly Moore. They instantly feel a connection between them. As the summary mentions, it’s not love. And I’ll say that this book isn’t a romance, at least not to me. It’s more about human connection and meeting the right person at the right time.
Jim finds himself with Kelly at her place, and through deeper conversations, they begin to understand one another and do something I find beautiful, they allow one another to be their authentic self. Neither feels pressured to be someone else. They connect exactly as they are. I particularly enjoyed how Kelly was patient with Jim, not leading him but rather being beside him through it all.
As I said, this book isn’t about love or the kind of connection that makes you want to spend your life with someone. Of course, Jim and Kelly will remember the night they spent together. But they will think of it as finding what they needed in that moment, so that they could have the strength to continue on and move forward with their lives.
I would highly recommend reading Comings and Goings. It’s a fantastic book that I think most readers would enjoy. But I would really recommend reading the Reunion Duology first to properly understand the characters, particularly that of Jim Garraty.
Thomas Wikman’s Review (Amazon)
I think this novelette is best read as a companion to the author’s larger masterpiece, Reunion: Coda. Alternatively, it serves as an introduction to the author’s writing style and storytelling prowess. The author has an exceptional skill in crafting and delivering compelling narratives that engage audiences, and this short novelette could be one of the many chapters in the life of the protagonist Jim Garraty, a man who will become a celebrated professor at Columbia University.
In this book, Jim Garraty is a first-year student at Harvard, and he is attending a party where he does not know anyone except for a fellow student who is quite busy elsewhere and leaving him on his own. He feels lonely, awkward, and out of place until a girl, Kelly Moore, takes interest in him, and his miserable night turns into quite an adventure. What stands out about this book is the realistic description of emotions, inner thoughts, and the realistic dialogue. It serves as a prelude to what to expect from his other books. I highly recommend this short novelette.
Denise Longrie’s Review (Amazon)
At a party where Jim is more observer than participant, a young woman approaches him and asks him, “You’re not having a good time, are you?” Feeling dejected, disliking his beer, which by now has grown warm, Jim is struck by the confidence of the woman who introduces herself as Kelly. Kelly listens and does not push, mock, or judge (other than to call Budweiser “horse piss.”) She sees him, something Jim, invisible up to that point, is grateful for.
The story is not a romance, but rather an enjoyable, insightful journey into empathy and the importance of human connection. It portrays the gift of intimacy set against a backdrop of alienation—college, often one’s first time away from home. The author adds music to the narrative, not only to evoke the 1980s (UGH), but also to enhance the conversation between Jim and Kelly.
I enjoyed reading this brief, lyrical tale.
Meg Learner’s Review (Amazon UK)
I am very fond of reading about Jim Garraty, and this short story keeps the standard up. Lyrical writing, very thoughtful, and a beautiful encounter.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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