Ellen Gilchrist’s first collection of short stories since 2005 consists of 10 pieces that take place in the American South, mainly in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Her characters are good-hearted Southerners, many of them wealthy, who are forced to confront life’s toughest challenges --- from natural disasters to terrorist threats to multiple sclerosis and untimely death --- and who emerge from each experience with a renewed belief in the goodness of human nature.