In her first collection in more than a decade, 
acclaimed short story writer Laura Furman displays 
the maturation of talent, theme and content that her 
widely praised early work foretold.

Furman is a writer of nuance and marvelous subtlety, 
acutely observant of the minute detail that forms 
the texture of reality whether in the natural world 
or in the arena of personal relationships.
   
Furman's specialty is buried emotion. And always 
there are knives hidden beneath the small comforts of 
the domestic life she describes so well.

In the title story, a woman who's taken early retirement 
moves to her lover's home in the country, oblivious to 
the ways in which this disturbs the balance of their 
relationship. In "Wonderful Gesture," a houseguest's 
gratitude hides - for awhile even from herself - the 
depths of her hostility.
   
Several of these thirteen rich and complex stories explore 
how it feels to look in with longing at what appear to be 
the more desirable lives of sisters or friends. But other 
stories expand outward, revealing an appreciation of the 
compromises by which most of us survive into middle life 
or beyond. In "Melville's House," a dying man recalls a 
life of duty and responsibility - and then does the final 
unexpected thing. In "The Woods" a surprising experience 
causes an older mother concern about how the choices she 
and her husband make affect the well-being of her son.

Many of the stories involve a woman's relationship to 
children or siblings. Often, a couple or woman is childless, 
with complex emotional results. In others, there are babies. 
In "Buddy," the relationship between two sisters is altered 
abruptly when one becomes pregnant. In "Beautiful Baby," 
an unmarried mother risks everything by participating in 
a contest where there will be no winners.

And throughout, there is the sudden shock of self-revelation.

Invoking the magic of vivid observation, Furman makes us 
realize that everything we think of as human is expressed in 
the dangerous world of domestic life.

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LAURA FURMAN is the distinguished author of a memoir, 
Ordinary Paradise; two novels, Tuxedo Park 
and The Shadow Line; two short story collections, 
The Glass House and Watch Time Fly. She is 
co-editor, with Elinore Standard, of Bookworms: Great 
Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading. Her fiction and 
essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Mirabella, 
House & Garden, GQ, Ploughshares, Southwest Review, Threepenny 
Review, Yale Review, Glamor and others. She was the 
founding editor of American Short Fiction, and has 
been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Dobie-Paisano 
Fellowship. She has received the Jesse H. Jones Award for 
fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. She and her husband,
Joel Warren Barna, and their son make their home in Austin, Texas.