Fiction. LGBT studies. In these nine stories, James Morrison writes about the intricate relation between tenderness and cruelty, about the burdens and freedoms of selfhood, the vagaries of identity, and the connections and disconnections among people across a wide range of human experience. Whether recounting the tale of a well-to-do housewife under siege or the ups and downs of a grungy garage band, Morrison portrays the sorrows of loneliness—or the uncommon triumphs of genuine contact—in a prose at once wry and tender, disconsolate and compassionate.