"This work shines with the rare quality of vision. I wish Josephine Carson were a benevolent deity, presiding over us all. Her nuanced, passionate attentions to character informs each of these stories with mercy and light." --Frances Mayes, author of under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy "These are lovely stories. Subtle, intelligent, and artfully nuanced, they play on the page like music." --Molly Giles, author of Creek Walk and Other Stories and Rough Translations