"Snatching profundity from the jaws of the banal is Shields’ specialty…[her] extraordinary ability to find both mystery and meaning in the chaos of everyday life…"
—Maclean’s
"These are wonderful stories."
—Books in Canada
"Shields is able to give some of the most complex accounts of human nature I’ve read in a short story."
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Infused with a sly humour, these poignant stories revel in the ordinary, with a few side trips to the sublime… both moving and wry."
—Washington Post
"Reading [these stories] gives you a sense of art spilling over into life… Even the briefest and apparently arbitrary details of life seem incandescent."
—Toronto Star
"Shields is a sympathetic storyteller who brings her quirky, touching characters to exuberant life."
—New York Newsday
"A wise, expansive voice… the author turns normal everyday memories and events into poetic prophecy."
—Newsday
