Winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction The stories in this first collection deliver the reader into a world in which men, women, and children are on the cusp of some deeper consciousness. The writing gives lie to orderly images of Midwesterners and instead evokes with unnerving clarity an interior landscape that is primitive and quietly chaotic. This is life in the balance-"whole worlds at the moment of rupture." The children and adolescent characters search for a moral compass or center, while the adults tangle with their own desires. And yet in these unprotected places people thrive in unexpected ways. Published in association with the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)