Even as she has built her reputation on such novels as Girl and The Light of Evening, Edna O'Brien has steadily honed her skills as a short story writer. Among the dozen tales in this 1990 winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the highlights include "What a Sky," "Another Time," and "The Widow," all three of which were featured in The New Yorker. "Her stories are brilliantly realized and often very funny…. O'Brien is quite simply one of the finest short story writers of our time."—Joyce Carol Oates