Birds of America

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Padgett Powell

Aliens of Affection marks new territory for Padgett Powell, picking up where his first collection of stories, Typical, left off. Although his characters continue to revolt against the received instructions of modern American living - refusing to be dunked in what Saul Bellow has called the "marinade of correctness" - their concerns are less for independence than for the maintenance of sanity itself. Emotional estrangement seems both inevitable and worth fighting against to the middle-aged heroine of the O. Henry prizewinner "Trick or Treat"; to the unmistakably American roofer of "Wayne" (who was introduced in Typical); to the deserted husband, father, and non-vet of "Dump"; and to the fantastic heroes in three stories grouped as "All Along the Watchtower."

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Amber Dermont

Damage Control displays Amber Dermont's remarkable gift for portraying characters at crossroads. In "Lyndon," a daughter visits presidential landmarks following the death of her father. In "Damage Control," a young man works at an etiquette school while his girlfriend is indicted for embezzlement. A widow rents herself to elderly women and vacations with them as a "professional grandchild" in "Stella at the Winter Palace." And in "The Language of Martyrs" a couple houses a mail order bride on behalf of the husband's Russian mother.

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William Trevor

"The Hill Bachelors contains a dozen new stories, set mostly but not entirely in Ireland.". "In 'Three People', an ageing father waits for the proposal for his daughter that will never come from the man who once told a lie to save her; in 'Against the Odds', a con-woman who has plied her trade across the entire Six Counties fixes this time on a widower in a small inland town; and in the poignant title-story, the youngest son returns for his father's funeral to the family hill farm to find it has become his unwelcome inheritance.". "William Trevor writes about the lonely and the sad, about those who have something to hide and those who barely have control over their lives."--BOOK JACKET.

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Joyce Carol Oates

PerfectBound e-book exclusive: "Dark Work," an interview with Joyce Carol Oates.Winner of the Frankfurt Distinguished E-Book Award for Fiction (2001).