Time has stretched out in some of the stories: a man and a woman look back 40 years to the summer they met -- the summer, as it turns out, that the true nature of their lives was revealed. In others, time is telescoped: a young girl finds in the course of an evening that the mother she adores and whose fluttery sexuality she hopes to emulate will not sustain her -- it's up to her.

The rich layering that gives the stories such a sense of breadth and real life is particularly apparent in the title story, in which the death of a local optometrist brings an entire town into focus, from the pre-adolescent boys who find his body to the man who probably killed him, and the woman who must decide what to do about what she might know.

Majestic, witty, profound -- these are stories that stretch the limits of fiction.