The hungers of love & the fear of time drive the men & women, sons & daughters in these stories to speak. Frederick Busch, author of The Night Inspector, renders precisely the need to connect & shows us the ways--funny, tender, & heartbreaking--in which connections, in spite of love, often fail. In "Heads" a mother is haunted by her own past when her daughter faces an accusation that could send her to jail. In "Malvasia" a daughter gives her bereaved father the courage to go on living. A father suffers over his inability to save his grown son from heartbreak in "Passengers." "The Joy of Cooking" is a brilliant portrait of a failed marriage. Called a "first-rate American storyteller" & "master craftsman" by the New York Times Book Review, Busch brings us into the achingly familiar lives of people caught between the need to tell a story & the fear of speaking out.