New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's first book, 11 interconnected stories that follow the coming to age of a young woman living in rural small town Minnesota in the 1960s - at the same time as her family is disintegrating, from poverty, drugs and alcohol, and their house is literally sinking, Dustjacket praise from Kay Gibbons, Richard Russo (who described it as " like finding a hot slot machine in a casino. One winner after another") and Mark Childress, 212 pp. ISBN: 0-375-413936.