$16.95

Tax-exempt?
Read this before you buy.

Molly Giles writes of the missed connections in life and of the rough translations that we employ when we try to convey, through words and gestures, what we are thinking and what we want from our loved ones.

Casual relationships can be treacherous in these stories. In "How to Quit Smoking," a young woman picks up a man in a paisley tie, takes him to the apartment where she is staying, dreams the next day of making a solid home at last, and is instead offered the promise of an eventual phone call. Marriage and family can be even more treacherous. Three of the stories follow Joan Bartlett as she watches her husband John change from a composer into would-be football addict and cruelly indifferent stranger.

Given the difficulties of coping with other people, one woman, in the story "Pie Dance," eventually decides that her dog is the most desirable dancing partner. Another woman, in the story "What Do You Say?," not knowing what to say to a divorced relative, ends up saying nothing. Puzzled yet resigned to the flesh-wounds caused by love and family, the women in Molly Giles's stories never retreat into sorrow and hopelessness, but instead turn their energies toward the outside world with humor and spirit, with hope.

Molly Giles is a lecturer in the creative writing department at San Francisco State University. Her stories have appeared in Playgirl, Redbook, North American Review, New England Review, and Ascent, among other publications. She lives in Woodacre, California, with her three daughters.

ISBN 0820323705 paper • $16.95

A volume in the seriesThe Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction