The deepening shade

In his first story collection, desperate characters grasp for moments of grace : a lesbian couple running a homeless shelter try to save a young woman controlled by a self-proclaimed prophet. A stripper commits a terrible crime to protect her sister from going to jail. An alcoholic cop attempts to stop Dick Cheney from robbing a gas station. In these stories -- which range from the heartbreakingly tragic to the bizarrely funny -- characters struggle violently with each other and with themselves.