These stories offer a sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us. Kessel's wit sparkles throughout, peaking with the most uproariously weird phone-sex conversation you'll ever read ('The Red Phone'). Grade: A- --Entertainment Weekly

One of the best collections of the year.--Locus

These well-crafted stories, full of elegantly drawn characters, deliver a powerful emotional punch.--Publishers Weekly

A long-awaited collection that intersects imaginatively with Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, and Flannery O'Connor. Includes John Kessel's modern classic sequence about life on the moon.

Winner of the Nebula, Sturgeon, Locus, and Tiptree awards, John Kessel is the author of The New York Times Notable Book Meeting in Infinity. He co-edited the anthologies Feeling Very Strange and Rewired. Kessel and his family live in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he co-directs the creative writing program at North Carolina State University.

andldquo;These stories offer a sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us. Kesselandrsquo;s wit sparkles throughout, peaking with the most uproariously weird phone-sex conversation youandrsquo;ll ever read (andlsquo;The Red Phoneandrsquo;).andrdquo;

John Kessel's stories have won the Nebula, Sturgeon, Locus, and Tiptree Awards. His books include Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and collections The Pure Product and Meeting in Infinity (a New York Times Notable Book). Kessel and his family live in Raleigh, NC, where he co-directs the creative writing program at North Carolina State University.