"In this splendidly crafted book of short stories, one comes to expect the unexpected, the strange and the extraordinary…The momentum gathers from one story to the next, forming a collection of great impact."—Publishers Weekly "Uncommonly good stories by an uncommonly gifted writer…absolutely singular in their effect, riveting, compounded of mystery and joy, filled with luminous, often eerie connections."—Raymond Carver "Benedict's prose is simple and unaffected, though lavish with striking detail, and her characters are crafted with respect for their humanity. She is blunt but never mordant. Her stories at times seem to be populated with case studies of the grotesque, but here her concerns are spiritual rather than sociological…Dianne Benedict has crafted a fine collection of fiction."—Hollins Critic This prize-winning collection of eight plainspoken stories is set in the raw, elemental sheep country of central and west Texas. Writing from her early absorption into the folk reality of Mexican Americans and southern whites, Dianne Benedict draws indelible people against a canvas alternately chilling and deceptively neutral. With great force and clarity, she deals with the sinister and the comic, with grinding desolation and abrupt illuminations of innocence and grace. These stories reveal the intense inner life and revelation possible when people live so close to the bone of circumstance that ordinary material values fall away.