A group of housewives smoke cigars and play cards whilst a tornado approaches a west Texas town, an Asian-American medic bicycles through the Vietnam countryside with her husband and son, returning to the spot where she once held dying soldiers. A young rockabilly aficionado prepares for a date in a Ukranian village close to Chernobyl, the words of a Beatles' song ring out in a Cambodian work camp.

This is a collection of truly brilliant short stories, desolate but uplifting, each depicting the deeply personal experience of a universal or historical event. Momentous fiction from the best American writer of his generation. Cullin's ability is to miraculously create moments of true pathos which distil important human experience into a single hair-raising image.

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[back flap]

Mitch Cullin was born in 1968 in New Mexico. He is the author of four novels: Whompyjawed (1999), Branches (2000), Tideland (2000), and The Cosmology of Bing (2001). He has been the recipient of many awards and honours, including a Dodge Jones Foundation grant and a poetry fellowship from The Arizona Commission of the Arts.