Driving Men Mad

The seventeen stories in this highly acclaimed collection are unflinching in their honesty, moving in their wisdom, by turns tough and surprisingly tender in their clear-eyed depiction of lives lived on the margins. With heartbreaking urgency, a woman recalls her all-consuming affair with the reckless lover who ultimately abandoned her by the side of a highway. A lonely cave diver risks everything for the dangerous thrill of the dive. Days away from forced retirement, a cosmetic-counter clerk with a rare skin disease ponders her future. A neglected boy s fascination with reptiles takes a sinister turn. A woman finds herself telling one lie after another to both her troubled girlfriend and to the man she s been sleeping with. These stories hum with remarkable tension as they vividly capture both the maddening confusion and the unexpected beauty of ordinary people rushing headlong into life."