Foes -- Paper losses -- The Juniper tree -- Debarking -- Willing -- Which is more than I can say about some people -- Dance in America -- Community life -- Agnes of Iowa -- Charades -- Four calling birds, three french hens -- Beautiful grade -- What you want to do is fine -- Real estate -- People like that are the only people here : canonical babbling in peed onk -- Terrific mother -- Two boys -- Vissi d'Arte -- Joy -- You're ugly, too -- Places to look for your mind -- The Jewish hunter -- Starving again -- Like life -- Escape from the invasion of the love-killers -- Strings too short to use -- Yard sale -- Water -- How to be an other woman -- What is seized -- The kid's guide to divorce -- How - -Go like this -- How to talk to your mother (notes) -- Amahl and the night visitors : a guide to the tenor of love -- How to become a writer -- To fill.

Collected here for the first time are the stories which have made Lorrie Moore one of the most significant and best-loved writers of her generation. From youthful ambition to the divorcee dating scene, these stories of lovers, loneliness and never quite belonging are all told in her characteristically knowing, wry voice and confirm Moore as a master of the short story.