Freud said that everywhere he went, a poet had been there first. Pamela Painter, even with these crystal prose conundrums, is one of those poets. Her stories are charming and provocative, but be careful if you look again: something fundamental is being pried open and we may look if we dare. I will pay her sentences the highest compliment: they remind me of Grace Paley. I've always loved her stories for how tart and smart they are and how, as I catch my breath after reading each one, I can then feel the emotional thrum of her fiction's beating heart.---Ron Carison Pamela Painter has perfected the short short. Here is a brilliant chronicle of the human condition, moving, complex, wholly original, and huge fun to read.---Alice Hoffman Pamela Painter is one of a kind, and it's the best kind. Re-reading the intimate stories in this collection, I thought of Colette; reading the stories based on a concelt or metaphor, I thought of Valenzuela. But that was only searching for comparisons; there's nobody like Painter. These stories are so open, yet reveal more every time you read them.---Robert Shapard In her stunning new collection. Pamela Painter conjures strange magic, as even her most down-to-earth characters reveal that in the end nobody is ordinary. She's taught me plenty in these pages---about love and the loss of it, about generosity and greed, happiness and pain---but mostly she has earned my undying admiration. This is fiction of immense beauty, full of wisdom and informed by rare grace.---Steve Yarbrough