A series of unusual incidents--a daughter's elopement, a sobering holiday trip, a vicious attack by the family dog, a lightning strike--provokes a mother of five to abandon her children. An oil rigger, inspired by sun-induced hallucinations, rescues his estranged wife, who doesn't appreciate his chivalry. In the wake of his father's and brother's deaths, a teenage boy finds a precarious solace working with his mother at a country-western bar. A cosmetics salesman schemes to buy Costa Rica and flirts dangerously with mobsters in Las Vegas. A woman fleeing her fourth marriage arrives at a complicated understanding of love and responsibility.
Railroad worker and conman, grieving son and battered wife--these characters explore the limits of family fragility and resilience. Their stories--suggesting unlikely connections between comedy and pathos, cruelty and generosity--promise a hard-won dignity and hope.