Publisher's Synopsis
In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic--she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer," a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in "The Last Man of Letters," the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn't bring a man like X down, could it? In these and five other biting and beautiful pieces, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us, demonstrating that sometimes, it's not the human side that wins out.
