Even before the injury, however, the child's nose was hideous. When the surgeon gives her a cosmetically perfect nose, the girl's mother is not merely disappointed but outraged. Tragedy is strewn across the lives of these characters on a daily basis. Survival is seen as an alternative to suffering and death yet the process is complicated and confusing. Some of these characters only discover life as they are dying.
Dreamers are the only people who seem genuinely content.
No disaster has ever been prevented by worrying about it. Love figures into the formula of survival, and the ability to forgive emerges as an intrinsic component of love. These stories demonstrate how the spirit ultimately survives when misfortune strikes. This collection won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.