Selected by A.M. Homes as the 1997 Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction.

In her debut collection of short stories, Becky Hagenston portrays the modern family as one that refuses to be fashionably dysfunctional. In the hyphenated, divorced, step-parented context of the late twentieth century, Hagenston reminds us that it's the minister and his wife in a small town in Maryland who are unconventional. These stories, conveyed with spirited, conversational prose, prove that the meaning of family prevails.