Growing up can mean growing pains and the joys of new independence. With maturity comes the shift from infinite possibilities to imminent realities. These thirteen stories describe the slow and subtle experience of growing up, allowing us to reflect upon the forces that pushed us toward adulthood and away from the familiar ground of youth that must be left behind if we are to learn how to soar on our own.

The mechanical men in these stories--Industrial Age holdovers, outsiders wanting for relevance and respect, or overwhelmed people who confuse the certainties of one reality with the doubts of another--are cut off in some way from contemporary culture.

Sometimes in these stories, which Randy F. Nelson calls "thought experiments about values in conflict," the characters are like the Native American prison guard in "Escape" Rifkin thinks that atonement is possible even for fugitive killers. Others are less sanguine. In "Breakers," a corporate hitman arrives on a forgettable island off the African coast. His mission: to shut down a hellish, polluting, ship-demolition business. His nemesis: a lawyer, now gone Heart-of-Darkness crazy, who preceded him years earlier for the same purpose. The bottom drops out in other stories, rearranging all reference points to good and bad, true and false. In "Abduction," for instance, a distraught young woman summons a tabloid reporter to a grubby hotel room, where the now-lifeless alien who had invaded her body lies wrapped in a sheet.

Nelson once explained his motivations by alluding to a line in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. A crowd of villagers are gazing upon a man, "but even though they were looking at him, there was no room for him in their imagination." "Stories and characters and situations that ask the imagination to accommodate something bigger, further, deeper--that's what I'm after," said Nelson.

The mechanical men in these stories - Industrial Age holdovers, outsiders wanting for relevance and respect, or overwhelmed people who confuse the certainties of one reality with the doubts of another - are cut off in some way from contemporary culture. Sometimes in these stories, which Randy F. Nelson calls ""thought experiments about values in conflict,"" the characters are like the Native American prison guard in ""Escape"": Rifkin thinks that atonement is possible even for fugitive killers. Others are less sanguine. In ""Breakers,"" a corporate hitman arrives on a forgettable island off the African coast. His mission: to shut down a hellish, polluting, ship-demolition business. His nemesis: a lawyer, now gone Heart-of-Darkness crazy, who preceded him years earlier for the same purpose. The bottom drops out in other stories, rearranging all reference points to good and bad, true and false. In ""Abduction,"" for instance, a distraught young woman summons a tabloid reporter to a grubby hotel room, where the now-lifeless alien who had invaded her body lies wrapped in a sheet. Nelson once explained his motivations by alluding to a line in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. A crowd of villagers are gazing upon a man, ""but even though they were looking at him, there was no room for him in their imagination."" ""Stories and characters and situations that ask the imagination to accommodate something bigger, further, deeper - that's what I'm after,"" said Nelson.

Work, and the coffee-fueled day-to-day grind, is the shared concern of these stories, which have been chosen from among the hundreds that have appeared in the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction series. More than seventy volumes, which include approximately eight hundred stories, have won the Flannery O'Connor Award. This stunning trove of always engaging, often groundbreaking short fiction is the common source for this anthology on work-and for planned anthologies on such topics as family, gender and sexuality, animals, and more. Sometimes work is rewarding, and sometimes it's just demanding. From the cubicle to the courtroom, from the stage to the station. These fifteen stories reflect upon the time we dedicate to the jobs we do, from the moment we begin our commute to the second we return home, and every hardworking hour in between.