It looked like just the sort of family Americans dream of having: dumb and loving.

You thought you were found but you realize that you were lost, and someday you may discover that you're lost now.

It's no accident that most self-help groups use 'anonymous' in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out of the self, followed by the construction of a new one.

What was more humiliating, I wondered: having to beg for someone's cold chicken bones or being offered them?

I feel like my head is finally the right size. I feel like it finally fits around my mind.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.