Bending Time

Stephen Minot, author of the novels Surviving the Flood and Ghost Images, is one of the finest living short-story writers. In this second collection, Minot explores the attempted and successful manipulations of time by eccentrics, expatriates, and exasperated city-dwellers. Bewilderment becomes an art form when Minot has his characters visit a now-dating ex-spouse, or attend a family reunion of apparent strangers, or find life's complexity maximized by being touted by art critics as "one of the four or five minimalists to watch." These 12 comic yet poignant stories have all been published in major periodicals.