The Dahlia Field assembles fourteen short stories by Henry Alley, written and published over the past two decades, which explore the inexorable force of male-to-male attraction. Poetic and diverse, Alley's stories portray the business man, the actor, the house painter, the arborist, the student, the scientist, the gardener, the professional athlete, the musician, along with the women allied with them, all facing the truths of their inner lives and outwardly seeking a safe gay haven. Expanding beyond the Oregon settings native to the author and his characters, these stories travel to Seattle, to the Olympic Peninsula, to Washington, D.C., and Vancouver, B.C., to look at the coming out of the soul in ways that are both flamboyant and subtle.