These stories originally appeared, sometimes in different form, in the following publications: “Pot Shack” in Buzz; “Night Train” in Double Take; “Daddy’s Girl,” “I Need a Man to Love Me” (published as “Nights in White Satin”), and “I Want to Live!” in Harper’s; “The Black Lights,” “Cold Snap,” “Mouses,” “The Pugilist at Rest,” “Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine,” “Superman, My Son,” “Way Down Deep in the Jungle,” and “A White Horse” in The New Yorker; “All Along the Watchtower,” “Bomb Shelter Noel,” “Diary of My Health,” “A Merry Little Christmas,” and “Pickpocket” in Playboy; “Mosquitoes” in Story; “Volcanoes from Hell” in Tin House; “Tarantula” in Zoetrope.

“The Pugilist at Rest,” “The Black Lights,” “I Want to Live!,” “Silhouettes,” “Mosquitoes,” and “A White Horse” were previously published in The Pugilist at Rest (Little, Brown and Company, 1993). “Cold Snap,” “Superman, My Son,” “Way Down Deep in the Jungle,” “Pickpocket,” “Pot Shack,” and “I Need a Man to Love Me” were previously published in Cold Snap (Little, Brown and Company, 1995). “Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine,” “The Roadrunner,” “A Run Through the Jungle,” “40, Still at Home,” “Tarantula,” “Mouses,” and “Daddy’s Girl” were previously published in Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (Little, Brown and Company, 1999).

“The Pugilist at Rest,” “I Want to Live!,” “Cold Snap,” and “Way Down Deep in the Jungle” were selected for The Best American Short Stories in 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995, respectively. “I Want to Live!” was also selected for The Best American Short Stories of the Century. “The Pugilist at Rest” and “Tarantula” each won the O. Henry Prize and were included in that anthology in 1993 and 1998, respectively.