The stories in this volume explore the myriad ways people lose, find, and hold on to one another. When all else fails her characters-science, religion, family, self-the powerful act of storytelling keeps their broken lives together. Each story in this rewarding and multifaceted collection introduces people who yearn for better lives and find themselves entangled in the hopes and dreams that heal and bind us all.
The title story-chosen by John Updike for The Best American Short Stories of the Century anthology-follows two generations of a family driven by the "patient and brutal need that people called hope." In "The Jap Room," winner of the 2008 Goodheart Prize, a woman tries to help her WWII veteran husband finally come home. "Rowing to Darien" introduces a famous English actress as she rows away from her husband's rice plantation. In "Hush" a gravely ill man encounters himself in the darkness of Kentucky's Mammoth Cave. These and other stories deftly broach universal themes of love, loss, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
