San Antonio College Library

"In the title story, a daughter, hoping to find whatever it is that keeps her traveling salesman father out on the road, leaves home in a stolen car." "In "Thanatology," Noreen, a level-headed teenager, tries to bring a realistic perspective to her dreamy and impractical mother Tish, who is having an affair with her boss who is also the father of one of Noreen's classmates." "In "Mental," two sisters, perhaps a little unbalanced themselves, try to...

Through twenty-three connected short stories, the author looks into the lives of the inhabitants of a small town in the American heartland. These psychological portraits of the sensitive and imaginative of Winesburg's population are seen through the eyes of a young reporter-narrator, George Willard. Their stories are about loneliness and alienation, passion and virginity, wealth and poverty, thrift and profligacy, carelessness and abandon.