When does sex become love? Pot smoking a habit? Or English blur into Spanish? These are the questions that trouble 21-year-old Mikaíl Fantasma who, although born in America, doesn’t feel free. Fresh out of college and with his two best friends, Mikaíl purchases a one-way ticket to Europe to figure his proverbial sh*t out. From Amsterdam to Berlin and Corsica, new twists and turns throw the three boys to beer-pong tables, 40-person dorms and crowded trains. Mikaíl learns that sometimes chance encounters can touch the very pit of your soul. The Summer Abroad is a sonic adventure that explores the frontiers of language and a new American identity, one which is multilingual, multicultural, and, as the story puts it, “multiconfundido.”

Inspired by a serendipitous encounter on Montserrat, a legendary mountain in Catalunya, at the end of Mikaíl's trip, our cover cooks chose a peach as the sole ingredient that encapsulates both the sensory and perceptive experiences in the protagonist’s journey: the fleeting, luscious flesh of the fruit as a symbol of the debauchery and the seed as a token of renewal. Resembling an open heart with a seemingly bleeding seed, the peach serves as a metaphor for a visceral journey that stirs within you. It also conveys the protagonist's transcendental journey, from the flesh (pulp) to the soul (seed). Our cover cooks also replaced the seed with a chunk of Montserrat range itself. In a nod to an epilogue following the encounter, the handwritten lettering against the deep blue sky adds to the cover design's mystical but cheerful mood. On the back cover, the peach appears whole, giving both peaches a yin and yang treatment.