1.   Ann Beattie has launched the title story from her forthcoming collection in eBook format . . . .

2.   But the only story that seems anywhere approaching the work Carver was publishing in his last years is the title story.

3.   In a typical passage from the title story, a group of women are at the end of one of their regular eat-and-schmooze evenings.

4.   In the poignant title story, people in a neighborhood bar in a small town share a long evening of mutual understanding.

5.   In the title story of this collection, an old woman helps a beloved granddaughter face the truth about herself and her abusive husband.

6.   In the title story, Timothy Stokes is a troubled schoolboy who sometimes pretends to be a werewolf.

7.   In the ragged title story, distance stretches between a band of spoiled Berlin hippies and the taxi driver who latches on to them.

8.   In the title story, elderly expatriates gather daily in a park in Miami to play dominoes and swap jokes about Cuba.

9.   Ned becomes friends with Clara, the long-suffering wife of Max Vigne, the would-be botanist in the title story, who spends so much time away from home.

10.   Nowhere is the balance kept better than in the title story.