In eighteen stories unlike any in our contemporary literature, Sam Shepard explores the vast and rugged American West with the same parched intensity that has made him the great playwright of hisgeneration ( The New York Times ).
A boy watches a remedy man tame a wild stallion, a contest that mirrors his own struggle with his father. A womandriving her mother’s ashes across the country has a strangely transcendent run-in with an injured hawk. Two aging widowers, in Stetsons and bolo ties, together make a daily pilgrimage to the localDenny’s, only to be divided by the attentions of their favorite waitress. Peering unblinkingly into the chasms that separate fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and strangers, these powerful tales bearthe unmistakable signature of an American master.

From the Trade Paperback edition.