Set primarily in the Northwest, where the author was born and has lived for many years, these stories tell how people do more than cope with the hard turns and shares of their lives. We watch them take the unexpected next step as they face their dilemmas.

Whether writing of a woman who discovers that her husband is having an affair after stumbling onto a collection of love letters or of the people who populate the Owl Woman "saloon" of the lead story, Gallagher invents wholly original characters and renders them with lyrical intensity. As with the great short stories of Flannery O'Connor, Gallagher's prose animates the no-nonsense themes of love, human pain, and healing.