A crowning collection from the award-winning short story writer Pamela Painter. Pamela Painter's short stories have been praised by Margot Livesey for their "wicked intelligence and ruthless humor." In Fabrications, which brings together 7 new and 24 selected stories, characters struggle to avoid the chaos in their lives, but-driven by addictions and appetites-often bring on disaster. Nobody is ordinary in Painter's stories. A burglar can't believe what he is asked to do by the woman whose jewelry he is stealing. Hitchhikers, hell-bent on murder, are thwarted by the miracle of story-telling. A wife can make rooms-and her husband-disappear, but saves the family dog. A young woman insists on the romance of being married in an Elvis Presley chapel, but for the wrong reasons. Fabrications is a testament to Painter's lyric skill and psychological insight across her career. Praise for Previous Books by Pamela Painter "These wonderful stories-about dogs and housewives, scholars and teenagers-vividly demonstrate Painter's wicked intelligence and ruthless humor and her utterly democratic interest in all our faults and foibles. . . . [A] quirky, sexy, irresistible collection."-Margot Livesey "Pamela Painter's stories are warm, wise, funny, and ultimately true to the way we live now-trying to carry on in the face of things breaking down around us. Reading each story is a thrill-for the full-blown lives, astute details, exact metaphors, and pitch-perfect dialogue. She's like a carpenter-nailing it, again and again."-Bobbie Ann Mason "This is fiction of immense beauty, full of wisdom and informed by rare grace."-Steve Yarbrough