White boys and river girls

Paula Gover likes to catch her people just as they are about to risk one last chance at love. And, in the hands of a writer who intuitively understands the nuances of intimate conversation as well as she does the deepest roots of motivation, even those characters with the most to hide end up relinquishing their secrets.

The nine stories in this collection draw on Gover's own experience, as an army wife living in a trailer in Georgia and as an often unemployed single mother back in her Michigan hometown. Some have Georgia backroads settings. Others are set in the American midwest. But what you'll remember are the characters. Here are barmaids and black musicians, single mothers and burnt-out business men, all struggling a little too close to the edge in lives where too much is at risk.

At the point of giving up, somehow they hang on - which Gover celebrates with searing insight and skill.