The seventeen stories in this highly acclaimed collection are unflinching in their honesty, moving in their wisdom, by turns tough and surprisingly tender in their clear-eyed depiction of lives lived on the margins. With heartbreaking urgency, a woman recalls her all-consuming affair with the reckless lover who ultimately abandoned her by the side of a highway. A lonely cave diver risks everything for the dangerous thrill of the dive. Days away from forced retirement, a cosmetic-counter clerk with a rare skin disease ponders her future. A neglected boys fascination with reptiles takes a sinister turn. A woman finds herself telling one lie after another to both her troubled girlfriend and to the man shes been sleeping with. These stories hum with remarkable tension as they vividly capture both the maddening confusion and the unexpected beauty of ordinary people rushing headlong into life.