content: The stories are of two types here -- short, one page sketches that verge on being prose poems, and longer, fuller stories which still contain an elusive quality. Although critics, to a man, preferred the longer stories, I find the shorter ones equally compelling. The writing is first-rate; it is nuanced, poetic, and contains a wealth of psychological insight. I think this is Phillps's greatest accomplishment: her merging of the psychological and the political in stories that are always accessible. Those looking for pretension will find it only with reviewers who trash sophisticated story-tellers while including the (see more about me) tag at the beginning of their own reviews.