These stories have appeared in the following publications:
“Spleen” in The Paris Review, May 2003, and in the anthology Wild East: Stories from the Last Frontier.
“The Stamp” in Ploughshares, December 2002.
“Night Guests” in Antioch Review, September 2001.
“Neighbors” in TriQuarterly, January 2000.
“Hail” in TriQuarterly, January 2003.
“Snow Powder” in Other Voices, April 2003, and in a shorter form in Powder, December 2002.
“Tchaikovsky’s Bust” in Fiction, June 2002.
“The Bridge Under the Danube” in Boulevard, June 2002.
“59th Parallel” in The Sun, January 2003.
“Ribs” in Tin House, July 2001.
“A Purple Story” appears for the first time in this volume.
I’m enormously grateful to Terry Karten for her wonderful editing and steadfast support, and I’m thanking—for encouragement and feedback—Francine Prose, Anne Edelstein, Danny Mulligan, Emilie Stewart, Jeanette Novakovich, Richard Burgin, Andrew Proctor, Carol Keeley, Larry Goldstein, Don Lee, and Mark Mirsky, and gracias to the institutions which helped by granting me time in the guise of money: the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Public Library’s Dorothy B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Yaddo Corporation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Tennessee Williams Fellowship at the University of the South.