Eleven "impeccably crafted, painfully hilarious" tales of innocence lost and families in search of connection from the New York Times–bestselling author ( San Francisco Chronicle).   A reluctant trophy wife on her Italian honeymoon; a young woman in love with her sister's dead boyfriend; a lonely puppeteer flirting with the hostess of a children's party; a teenage girl traveling to Paris with her father and, unexpectedly, his young girlfriend. Francine Prose's characters inhabit a world of rich emotion and startling clarity, searching for connection in a world full of surprise and humor; they travel, love, break up, and start again. Even their animal companions—a gecko rescued from a wild party, a dog who bites a bride, a hamster who dies unexpectedly and sends a family on a journey to give it a proper funeral—shine with the emotional complexity and sly satire that make Prose's work such a joy to experience.   In this collection, the New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist demonstrates the craft, humor, and piercing human insight that make her, in the words of Gary Shteyngart "one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers."