Tobias Wolff is the author of seven previous books and the editor of The Vintage Book of American Short Stories and other anthologies. Among his honors are the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award, both for excellence in the short story, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He lives in Northern California and teaches at Stanford University.

'Great is an overused word but Tobias Wolff justifies it. This is an essential book which demonstrates the enduring talent of a truly great writer' Spectator 'Masterly Nothing happens and yet everything happens in less than nine pages. The effect is devastating' Sunday Telegraph 'To read a Tobias Wolff story is to sink into the soft seat of your grandfather's strong, modest old Buick and let yourself be carried through an America of small towns, small joys, small struggles and small despairs - a landscape so familiar as to be invisible, the landscape of homeland' New York Times 'Lucid, funny, sad, never knowingly overstated, his best stories are small miracles of writerly technique the best introduction to this fine writer's fiction' Guardian