These ten short stories explore loss and sacrifice in American suburbia. In idyllic suburbs across the country, from Philadelphia to San Francisco, narrators struggle to find meaning or value in their lives because of (or in spite of) something that has happened in their pasts. In Hole, a young man reconstructs the memory of his childhood friend's deadly fall. In The Theory of Light and Matter, a woman second-guesses her choice between a soul mate and a comfortable one.

Memories erode as Porter's characters struggle to determine what has happened to their loved ones and whether they are responsible. Children and teenagers carry heavy burdens in these stories: in River Dog the narrator cannot fully remember a drunken party where he suspects his older brother assaulted a classmate; in Azul a childless couple, craving the affection of an exchange student, fails to set the boundaries that would keep him safe; and in Departure a suburban teenage boy fascinated with the Amish makes a futile attempt to date a girl he can never be close to.

Memory often replaces absence in these stories as characters reconstruct the events of their pasts in an attempt to understand what they have chosen to keep. These struggles lead to an array of secretive and escapist behavior as the characters, united by middle-class social pressures, try to maintain a sense of order in their lives. Drawing on the tradition of John Cheever, these stories recall and revisit the landscape of American suburbia through the lens of a new generation.

"The narrators of Porter's Flannery O'Connor Award — winning collection tend to be young and clear-eyed beyond their years as they give voice to the secrets — family, their own — that haunt them. In the opening story, 'Hole,' the narrator ruminates on the loss of a childhood friend and the slippery nature of guilt, memory and truth. In 'Storms,' a young man considers his relationship with a troubled sister, who abandoned her fianc in Spain without a passport or money. The narrator of 'River Dog' wonders if he should or could hate his brother for the things he did to other people, and for what they did to his brother. In the title story, a young woman ponders the nature of a May/December romance. If the events and secrets of these characters' pasts have not overtaken their lives, then their reverberations still threaten to corrupt the years yet to come. Throughout, Porter shows how love and pain often come hand in hand." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)