It is a collection of nine short stories. According to the description on the book flap, Smolens' stories chart emotional and spiritual boundaries of the human experience.
Teenage boys search for sex, love and bomb shelters in suburban Boston.
A homeless woman pursues the Pope. A prison escape plays out the delicate balance between compassion and betrayal. Like his mentor and friend, Andre Dubus, to whom this book, in part, is dedicated, John Smolens writes with grace and insight of quiet, often foreshortened lives - sometimes moments of miraculous reprieve, but more generally of negotiating that area between desire and possibility where we all make our way. Smolens is also the author of two other books, Winter by Degrees and Angel's Head. Copies of the book will be available.