Anne Leigh Parrish has written a collection of stories that deserve a place on the shelf next to Raymond Carver, Tom Boyle, Richard Bausch, and other investigators of lives gone wrong. Parrish writes with painful clarity about marriages turned sour, children at war with their parents, women drifting from one damaging relationship to another, and about unexpected acts of generosity-an impoverished woman giving her battered piano to a priest who had befriended her, a schoolgirl who bribes a boy to pretend an interest in an overweight classmate, then finds that her kindness has disastrous consequences. These are potent and artful stories, from a writer who warrants attentive reading. —C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic Monthly

Through stone-cold sentences and imagery that is stark, but never barren, Anne Leigh Parrish examines the difference between the heartbreak we are born into the heartbreak we willingly seek out. —Gina Ochnser, author of The Russian Dream Book of Colour and Flight

In her debut collection, Anne Leigh Parrish gives us eleven sharp stories that lay bare the human need for connection, forgiveness, new life. Her working-class characters blaze off the page. —Jill Meyers, Editor of American Short Fiction

Anne Leigh Parrish’s writing is pitch perfect, beautiful in detail and restraint, but what sets her stories apart is how they sneak up on you, each building to a surprisingly and deeply satisfying conclusion. —Tom Dooley, Editor of Eclectica Magazine