Description: Jayne Anne Phillips has always been a master of portraiture, both in her widely acclaimed novels and her short fiction. The ten stories in Fast Lanes demonstrate the breadth of her talent, offering elegantly rendered views into the lives of characters torn between the liberation of detachment and the desire to connect.

The people in these stories try to escape from their rural American hometowns, only to be haunted by their pasts. A cocky 20-year-old flees his adoptive family to become a rock star. A teenage girl lacerates her arm when her boyfriend decides to go to military school. A mentally ill woman drifts between communes, her insanity inconspicuous among her drugged-out housemates. A pregnant woman is rescued by her brother, the one man she has ever loved, after being abandoned by her gambling husband. These incandescent portraits offer windows into the lives of lost souls, demonstrating with their bold artistry and breathtaking range why Jayne Anne Phillips remains one of our most powerful writers.

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