These authentic and descriptive tales quietly portray the lives of a cross section of our times:  a reconstituted step family struggling to put down new roots, self-destructive women caught in unfulfilling relationships with men, rural dwellers evoking the basic desires and pains of their unchanging but nevertheless eventful lives

 In "The Nile," a "happily married" woman is surprised to see heer husband and herself differently after she spends a week traveling with him through the strange and frightening countryside of Egypt.  In "Diamond Twill," a young woman leaves her family to join an artisans' commune, finding there the kind of fulfillment nothing else had given her.  A rural excavator in "Connor's Lake" expresses his grief over his recent divorce by digging a lake -- and trying to forget his attraction to a friend's wife.

As these characters struggle to better their lives or confront the dilemmas that await them, we glimpse important moments of transition and transcendance.