A lot of very good short stories. Some were weaker than others (the short story that gave the collection its title was not my favorite), but overall a good read.

My favorite was the chronicle of a brief sexual affair between a seventy-year old woman and her twenty-something neighbor. There’s a hint of unreliable neighbor in it (her niece accusing her of making a fool of herself over the man suggests that she is less measured than she lets on) and sadness when she sees him on the street, ten years after the relation ended, and she ignores his greetings because she in those ten years, she has aged greatly and doesn’t want to be remembered as the even older woman.

That was one was also a rarity in that it was not primarily about the immigrant experience. While rarely the centerpiece, the vulnerability and systematic abuse non- and limited-English speaking immigrants face is ever present in those stories. But more so is the desire for something. Whether the desire to be desired, the desire for a celebrity, the desire for acceptance. White privilege also pokes its nose into things, as it tends to do in real life.