Twenty-five years of dazzling short stories, including seven never before published in book form, from the bestselling author of Riven Rock and The Tortilla Curtain

T. C. Boyle is one of the most inventive and wickedly funny short story writers at work today. Over the course of twenty-five years, Boyle has built up a body of short fiction that is remarkable in its range, richness, and exuberance. His stories have won accolades for their irony and black humor, for their verbal pyrotechnics, for their fascination with everything bizarre and queasy, and for the razor-sharp way in which they dissect America's obsession with image and materialism. Gathered together here are all of the stories that have appeared in his four previous collections, as well as seven that have never before appeared in book form. Together they comprise a book of small treasures, a definitive gift for Boyle fans and for every reader ready to discover the "ferocious, delicious imagination" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of a "vibrant sensibility fully engaged with American society" (The New York Times).

"700 flashy, inventive pages of stylistic and moral acrobatics." --The New York Times Book Review

"Varied, clever, and delightful . . . these stories are consistent in their readability and quality." --Chicago Tribune

"Boyle sketches his characters with Swiftian good humor and crisp prose; in his best work he tempers his trademark irony with a trace of empathy." --The New Yorker

"He writes like a kid at a carnival, tossing off firecrackers of language that explode like Roman candles in our minds. . . . In marking out a literary universe that is both diverse and remarkably consistent, the stories here . . . add up to an oeuvre all their own." --The Village Voice

* A New York Times Notable Book