“O’Nan has the rare gift of shifting perspective, often in the same story, without any sacrifice of intensity of authenticity. In this book we see life through the eyes of--among others--a ruined farmer, a black day-laborer, a young cop separated from his family and descending into madness, an old Chinese grocer; all of them vividly alive and different from the rest, yet mysteriously joined by the author’s feel for the weight of the histories they carry.”

- TOBIAS WOLFF