A long-awaited collection of stories--twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of and stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer ...A long-awaited collection of stories--twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of and stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language. From the opening story, "Willing", about a second-rate movie actress in her thirties who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being, unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America.