An astonishing collection of short stories--set deep in the twisted heart of middle class America--from one of America's most promising and highly acclaimed young writers. Leavitt lays bare the terrible lies of love and pain that bind us all in this "astounding collection of short stories".--New York Times. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Daniela Gioseffi is an American Book Award winning author of fourteen books. She's been a worldwide speaker on campuses, at book fairs, on NPR, BBC, and on The Poet and the Poem, Library of Congress' Radio Show of The National Endowment for the Arts. This book, based on her non-fiction Afterword, includes newly discovered, startling research and theory published in The Emily Dickinson Journal, Vol. X1.2. She is listed with the Dickinson Scholar's Registry, has received the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in poetry, two New York State Council for the Arts grants in poetry, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. "Gioseffi's writing is appealing... Engaging, filled with energy.... irresistible. Larry McMurty, The Washington Post. Pulitzer Prize: Terms of Endearment "Gioseffi's work overflows with poetic vision." Nona Balakian, former staff reviewer, The New York Times "... a gifted writer.... A stunning essay [afterword]. It should be a book." Galway Kinnell, Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award winning poet "Whatever Daniela does, she does well. Among other things, I'd put my life in her hands.... Dickinson is lucky Daniela took hers in her hands." Grace Paley, Former Poet Laureate of VT. NY State Fiction Award "Startlingly fresh. Animated. Voluptuous. Gioseffi's writing is mythopoeic." Mary Pradt, Library Journal "Gioseffi's writing is imaginatively rich, startling, intelligent, with a wide range of reading behind it, and relevant to the most profound issues of our times." John Logan, Former poetry editor: The Nation "I like the way your essay richly evokes the life and times of Dickinson." Robert Hass, Former Poet Laureate USA "The essay [afterword] on Dickinson is fascinating and convincing...." Alice Quinn, Director: Poetry Society of America "Daniela's is an adamant poet's world where the poem is the source of all good." Bob Holman, PBS: The United States of Poetry, and Bowery Poetry Club, NY

Cool, elegant, pure, and yet surprisingly eccentric, the thirteen stories in Between the Flags explore contradictions of American experience since World War II. This retrospective of B.H. Friedman's work begins with "As I Am I Will Be," as its central character, Little Boy, faces civilian life after the war. It ends with the title story, in which a nameless man fights for his life against the sea and afterward realizes how little of his identity he carries away. Between these two periods - the forties and the eighties, youth and old age - life stories filled with regret, humor, and subtle complications. They complement the stories collected in Coming Close (1982), also published by Fiction Collective. Friedman's characters struggle with the ways in which their lives are bounded. The desire to recover the sexual energy of youth propels one character into a confrontation with priapism. An art critic and the painter she made famous nourish and then finally consume each other's talents. In "Whisper," a man cherishes the anonymity that allows him to move freely in his pursuit of "zeros" (money). "Whisper," a prescient parable for the eighties, was expanded into a novel and recommended for a National Book Award by William Gass. Except for "Reunion in Spain," which is published here for the first time, all of these stories appeared previously in distinguished literary magazines.