This book of new stories by novelist and short story writer Jerome Mandel tells tales of the head, the heart, and writing – some gritty, some witty, some smooth.

With intelligence, sympathy, and a wry, often comic irony, they address loss and love, puzzlement and growing old, choices. In these stories cars break down, people make surprising announcements or do unexpected things. They die or don't or can't or sell metaphors.

Some people fall in love, misplace love, lose love. Some survive and thrive; others don't. We learn more about them than they do.

"Jerome Mandel is an excellent writer. He brings to his stories deep compassion, emotional understanding, blended with scholarship and refinement." -Leslie Blanchard, Writer's Choice-