In each of these tales master storyteller Richard Ford is drawn to the themes of intimacy, love, and their failures. An illicit visit to the Grand Canyon reveals a vastness even more profound; an exacting career woman celebrates Christmas with her adamantly post-nuclear family; a couple weekending in Maine try to recapture the ardour that has disappeared, both gradually and suddenly, from their lives; on a spring evening's drive, a young wife confesses to her husband the affair she had with the host of the dinner party they're about to join.