';The collection consistently does what the oeuvre does best: communicate intense emotion with force, give life to characters that struggle with their circumstances, illuminate the universal through the specific and the particular, and turn the commonplace into art.' Globe and Mail';[The anthology] amuses, astonishes, and enlightens; it is a delicious cacophony of voices and engaging stories . . .'Books in Canada The Journey Prize Stories is Canada's most celebrated annual fiction anthology, presenting the best stories published each year by some of our most exciting up-and-coming writers. Among the stories this year: Desperate to reinvent himself, a disgraced diplomat on what will be the last assignment of his career goes in search of a woman from his past in Eastern Croatia. As a teacher begins to unravel in the aftermath of a school shooting, a series of surprising encounters with her former students reveals their differing degrees of resiliency. Bench presses and Wonder Woman comics create an unexpected intimacy between a teenager and her Ukrainian-language tutor, a former female champion weightlifter. After his junkie uncle moves into the basement to hide out from his dealer and get clean, a lonely boy's longing for a male role model threatens to lead him astray. When a famous author finds himself embroiled in a sex scandal while on his book tour, he discovers the only person he has left to turn to is his handler, a woman with secrets of her own. Cultural tradition gives way to modern-day Japanese efficiency when a long-married couple attend a meeting of Concerned Parents of Unmarried Offspring, a speed dating event for parents in search of spouses for their adult children.The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The winner will be announced in fall 2010.From the Trade Paperback edition.