A collection of short stories about provincial life in the American Midwest and published for the first time in Britain. Powers, an American author with a reputation for being alert to the humour stored up in every human drama, and who lists among his admirers such literary figures as Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O'Connor and Anthony Burgess, has been described by Jonathan Raban as "one of the funniest, most socially exact, most heart rending and most thoroughly enjoyable writers alive".