In her first full-length story collection, author A. Manette Ansay explores the rural Midwest landscape and the people who inhabit it: ordinary folk with extraordinary inner lives, struggling to make sense of the isolated, sometimes painful, and often intensely religious worlds in which they live. Her are 15 haunting and exquisitely written tales that offer a rare and unforgettable glimpse into the complexities of being human and being alive. “A. Manette Ansay’s stories map the distances between ourselves and other worlds. In doing so, they remind us of how necessary our dreams and desires are to the fragile lives we piece together, and how, as much as anything, it is the act of creating and living that brings joy and redemption.” - Jonis Agee, New York Times Book Review “The characters...are like geodes: plain on the outside, but revealing, when split, unexpected colors.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review The title story won the 1992 Nelson Algren Prize and was awarded the Associated Writing Programs Short Fiction Series Prize. In her first full-length story collection, author A. Manette Ansay explores the rural Midwest landscape and the people who inhabit it: ordinary folk with extraordinary inner lives, struggling to make sense of the isolated, sometimes painful, and often intensely religious worlds in which they live. Her are 15 haunting and exquisitely written tales that offer a rare and unforgettable glimpse into the complexities of being human and being alive. A. Manette Ansay is the author of eight books, including Vinegar Hill , Midnight Champagne (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Blue Water . She has received the Pushcart Prize, two Great Lakes Book Awards, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches in the MFA writing program at the University of Miami.