Set in the beautiful, often uncompromising isolation of the central plains of North America, Kevin Patterson’s haunting stories explore the extent to which geography is destiny. In "Les is More" an overweight bartender determines to break the monotony of his life by curling up in a steel barrel and going over the local waterfalls. In "The Perseid Shower" a son reflects on his father's passion for meteor showers and all he failed to understand about his father's galaxy. In "Boatbuilding," a lonely divorcee builds a vessel with which she hopes to leave behind one life and drop anchor in another. And in the final story, characters from across the collection make a curious but moving connection at their high school reunion in Dunsmuir, Manitoba.

Author of the acclaimed memoir The Water in Between—a New York Times Notable Book—Kevin Patterson has poured his narrative gifts, his familiarity with the natural world, and a delicate understanding of human nature, into a striking fiction debut. "Vivid. . . . Patterson makes this country exotic." --The New York Times

"Patterson… [has] a keen eye for defining images and motifs that will linger long in the reader's memory." --The Globe and Mail

“An exceptional first work of fiction” – The Washington Post Book World

"Tracks eccentric and genuinely torn-up characters through barren, dramatic regions. . . . Patterson . . . writes with the power of Russell Banks or Annie Proulx."--Publishers Weekly