An eloquent and poignant work of fiction about the soul of the American family, and about storytelling itself, by one of our country's most important writers.The parents and children in these stories are driven to speak by the hungers of love and the fear of time. Tender, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, Busch captures our need to connect, the failures that make us human, and the triumphs that make us splendid. In "Heads" a mother is haunted by her own past when her daughter is accused of a murder. In "Malvasia" a daughter gives her bereaved father the gift to go on living. A father suffers over his inability to save his grown son from heartbreak in "Passengers." "The Joy of Cooking" is a tour de force about a failed marriage. Called a "first-rate American storyteller," and a "master craftsman" by the New York Times Book Review, Busch delivers a moving portrait of the American family.