<div>The very short stories of Diane Williams have been aptly called folk tales that hammer like a nail gun,” and these 35 new ones are sharper than ever. They are unsettling, yes, frequently revelatory, and more often than not downright funnyeven though within these covers a mother dies, an illicit love affair is revealed, a ghost pays a visit, and police are called to the scene.<br><br>Not a single moment here is what you might expect. While there is immense pleasure to be found in Williams’s spot-on observations about how we behave in our highest and lowest moments, the heart of the drama beats in the language of American short fiction’s grand master, whose originality, precision, and power bring the familiar into startling and enchanted relief.</div>