These short stories are about a key moment in a characterÕs life. Story details can move backward and forward from the key moment but they donÕt constitute a plot in the sense that a novel has a plot. Once menace appears the characters find themselves in situations of alienation and dislocation. Their crises are individual, low key, and surmountable, but the protagonists stand alone. As far as craft goes, while many of the details are imagined, a fair number are lived, observed, or stolen, but never set down exactly as they happened.