The stories in this timely collection range from intimate family portraits to broader pictures of art and culture and politics. From the sometimes humorous predicaments of the American gender wars and domestic change, to class conflicts, to artistic innovation with its personal costs, to the horrors of the Stalinist period and the more recent Middle Eastern wars, the twentieth century’s violent history haunts these stories.

“Daugherty’s collection is the strongest I’ve read this year. It’s full of detail, believable conversation, and thought-provoking ideas. Really: read this.”
—Ann Beattie