Short stories published in 1988

Listing 34 stories.

After Jehovah's witnesses find a couple brutally murdered in their trailer, convenience store owners remember their own interactions with the couple in the time preceding the murders.

A family’s plans for the first day of the hunting season are delayed when the reason behind one son and his wife’s separation is revealed.

A strange young man shows up to a town and falls for a girl's Aunt Moon. Things take a turn when he mysteriously disappears but life goes and he makes a surprising comeback.

A young woman returns to live with her parents for the third time in her adult life and reflects on her relationships with men.

A middle-aged, widowed man realizes his new wife and her brutish brother are slowly taking over his farm.

A woman addicted to narcotics works as a waitress and fixes up her apartment in hopes of getting back her son from foster care after throwing him against a wall.

In a 1960s American suburb, a father promises his three girls a family vacation for Christmas. As they find out months later, however, they won't be going to Disneyland—instead, they'll be spending two weeks in the bomb shelter beneath their backyard.

In 1952, stifled by a cruel employer and the unfamiliarity of her new life in America, a Chinese immigrant decides to take matters into her own hands.

After a man's wife dies in childbirth, he hires a nanny to take care of his children. The children develop a loving relationship with the nanny, while the father brings in numerous stepmothers.

After a rich family purchases family land, they become obsessed with the lineage, bothering neighbors for information and mistaking silly childhood etchings for a rare discovery.