Marooned in an Oregon trailer park, Josie Wallgood thinks she's discovered a way to hit it big as a psychic headliner. While barely making rent money as a fortune-teller spinning tales for the gullible, a trusting heiress hires her to exorcise the spirit of her father Max who was killed in action during the Korean War.

Josie teams up with Cain Reeves, a washed-out minor league catcher, and hatches a plot to bilk her client out of the family fortune. But something seems to be going wrong-all Josie's cornball predictions start coming true, and the missing pieces to a twenty-five year mystery in her victim's past begin to fall into place.

Is "Madame Josephina" really on the path to celestial stardom, or is she just another footnote in the "Psychic Hall of Fame"?

Can virtue be found in a turn-of-the-century bordello? Can a frontier teacher stand idly by as the Shoshone culture is subsumed by Anglo missionaries? Can a suburban lawyer justify that his casual dalliances don't amount to infidelity? From the opulent parlor of an 1898 Seattle bordello to a Portland law firm in 1989, each heroine, hero, and villain in this memorable collection of short stories is captured at a crossroads in life. They are ordinary people: brave, timid, foolhardy, modest, brazen, and often self-sacrificing. And they struggle with the budding concerns of their time-women's suffrage, chauvinistic double-standards, prejudice, misogyny, and the loneliness of separation brought on by war. Gehla S. Knight deftly explores these issues without reserve, placing her characters in crisis situations where they must act despite the murkiness of what's right and what's wrong. In small but powerful ways, their choices challenge the prevailing views of their time and blaze new trails that those who follow can easily travel. Juxtaposing society's often ill-conceived mores with individual will and desire, Knight deftly combines historical settings with colloquial dialogue and vivid characters. Spanning nearly a century of American history, "Plum's Pleasure" is a satisfying collection that will tantalize both your senses and sensibilities.

1950, and the cookie-cutter houses in the slipstream of a paper mill promise new beginnings for the families moving to Heath Street. From the tragicomedy of Atom Bomb drills to the wonder of glitzy gadgetry, Dyanflow transmissions and automatic canasta shuffling machines, everything that makes Made in America the password to the future is reflected in the neighbors' prodigious faith in progress. On Heath Street the seeds are sown for a generation caught between vanity and self-esteem, humility and confidence, duty and liberation. How far we've come -- or have we only just begun the journey?

Can virtue be found in a turn-of-the-century bordello? Can a frontier teacher stand idly by as the Shoshone culture is subsumed by Anglo missionaries? Can a suburban lawyer justify that his casual dalliances don't amount to infidelity? From the opulent parlor of an 1898 Seattle bordello to a Portland law firm in 1989, each heroine, hero, and villain in this memorable collection of short stories is captured at a crossroads in life. They are ordinary people: brave, timid, foolhardy, modest, brazen, and often self-sacrificing. And they struggle with the budding concerns of their time-women's suffrage, chauvinistic double-standards, prejudice, misogyny, and the loneliness of separation brought on by war. Gehla S. Knight deftly explores these issues without reserve, placing her characters in crisis situations where they must act despite the murkiness of what's right and what's wrong. In small but powerful ways, their choices challenge the prevailing views of their time and blaze new trails that those who follow can easily travel. Juxtaposing society's often ill-conceived mores with individual will and desire, Knight deftly combines historical settings with colloquial dialogue and vivid characters. Spanning nearly a century of American history, "Plum's Pleasure" is a satisfying collection that will tantalize both your senses and sensibilities.

Marooned in an Oregon trailer park, Josie Wallgood thinks she's discovered a way to hit it big as a psychic headliner. While barely making rent money as a fortune-teller spinning tales for the gullible, a trusting heiress hires her to exorcise the spirit of her father Max who was killed in action during the Korean War.

Josie teams up with Cain Reeves, a washed-out minor league catcher, and hatches a plot to bilk her client out of the family fortune. But something seems to be going wrong-all Josie's cornball predictions start coming true, and the missing pieces to a twenty-five year mystery in her victim's past begin to fall into place.

Is "Madame Josephina" really on the path to celestial stardom, or is she just another footnote in the "Psychic Hall of Fame"?

1950, and the cookie-cutter houses in the slipstream of a paper mill promise new beginnings for the families moving to Heath Street. From the tragicomedy of Atom Bomb drills to the wonder of glitzy gadgetry, Dyanflow transmissions and automatic canasta shuffling machines, everything that makes Made in America the password to the future is reflected in the neighbors' prodigious faith in progress. On Heath Street the seeds are sown for a generation caught between vanity and self-esteem, humility and confidence, duty and liberation. How far we've come -- or have we only just begun the journey?