While helicopters overhead spray against a Medfly infestation, a group of peoples' lives in Los Angeles intersect, some casually, some to more lasting effect. While they go out to concerts and jazz clubs and even have their pools cleaned, these same folks also lie, drink, and cheat. Death itself seems never to be far away. A look at human life and American culture with over 20 lives interweaving.

The true story of how one special cocker spaniel turned four strangers into family.

"From one of the most accomplished writers of our time comes another brilliant collection of short fiction. Artful, agile, and inventive; Lydia Davis' newest collection of stories delves into topics ranging from marriage to tiny insects. These stories are a celebration of language and careful observation that once again confirms Davis' sincere love and mastery of the form." --

"One dark evening on New York City's Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect plan: if you kill for me, I'll kill for you. In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her...

A summer of healing turns turbulent when a grieving widow and her teenage twins experience passion, first love, and a dangerous secret from the widow's past that threatens to destroy the family.

"Starting in the late 1970s, a moral panic concerning child kidnapping and exploitation gripped the United States. For many Americans, a series of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children, publicized through an emergent twenty-four-hour news cycle, signaled a 'national epidemic' of child abductions perpetrated by strangers. Some observers insisted that fifty thousand or more children fell victim to stranger kidnappings in any given year....