Description: The short stories in this collection are about contemporary women, the frontiers they must cross to sustain close relationships, and their struggles to balance society's expectations with their own needs. The relationships examined in these stories are with husbands, lovers, parents, children, friends. Present at the same time are other relationships - with careers, with the subtleties of corporate life, with parental and spousal obligations, with aging and the passage of time. The recurring issue: What happens when obligations to one's self collide with obligations to others and to society's norms? The issue is as current as the Nineties, with the changing concerns, choices and lifestyles of women. The dilemma is also as old as human history. The author draws on her own observations over many years as a working professional, a mother, a daughter, a corporate wife. David Brown, producer of Driving Miss Daisy, The Player, The Verdict and other acclaimed films, calls these "masterful stories" with "daring insight (into) women's dilemma in our rapidly changing society". Susan Fisher Greenwood, president of the International Women's Forum, says B.A. Phillips' stories are "a major contributor to understanding the conflicts and inner struggles of women in the Nineties.... Hers is an eloquent voice that will resonate with many of today's women". Whether it is the adolescent in "Dancing in Space" who tears apart her family in her determination to get to a rock festival, or the terminally ill mother who continues to antagonize her dutiful daughter in "See It My Way", or the executives who drift into human crises in "Social Security" and in "Goodbye, Friends", each asks us to examine whether thekinds of fulfillment we pursue justify the painful journeys sometimes required. These well-crafted stories are about a world in which women's traditional roles and the traditional expectations of family, friends and society often conflict with attempts at "having it all" in today's freer but infinitely more complex social and emotional environment.

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