Along with completely original material, this new collection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short fiction, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play Coronado. By turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these powerful tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths-and reveal that the truth awaiting us there is not what we...

"Collection of short stories by Eudora Welty, published in 1949. The stories had all been published previously... Symbolism from Greek mythology unifies the stories, all of which are set in the Mississippi Delta town of Morgana over a 40-year period. The hero of "Moon Lake" and the guitarist in "Music from Spain" are Perseus figures. King MacLain, the protagonist of "Shower of Gold," is a sexually adventurous Zeus figure." -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia...

Eight short stories with subjects ranging from a dejected teenager who discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull's nest to two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove who try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.

The women in the linked short story collection Once Removed carry the burdens imposed in the name of intimacy-the secrets kept, the lies told, the disputes initiated-as well as the joy that can still manage to triumph. A singer with a damaged voice and an assumed identity befriends a silent, troubled child; an infertile law professor covets a tenant's daughterly affection; a new mother tries to shield her infant from her estranged mother's surprise...

The mechanical men in these stories-Industrial Age holdovers, outsiders wanting for relevance and respect, or overwhelmed people who confuse the certainties of one reality with the doubts of another-are cut off in some way from contemporary culture. Sometimes in these stories, which Randy F. Nelson calls "thought experiments about values in conflict," the characters are like the Native American prison guard in "Escape": Rifkin thinks that atonement...

Contains a collection of the authors writings originally published in The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" during the years from 1978 to 1983.

"The author of the sensational national best seller For the Relief of Unbearable Urges returns with a commanding new collection of short stories: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank establishes Nathan Englander beyond all doubt as the heir to Roth, Malamud, and Babel. A tour de force. The title story, inspired by Carver's masterpiece, is a comic classic, a provocative portrait of two marriages in which the holocaust is played out as a...

A short story collection that examines the borders between nations and between people, including the Edgar-winning Amapola and his now classic Bid farewell to her many horses.