"Sallie Bingham examines modern-day "transgressions" in affairs of the heart. She offers up a menage a trois, an older woman's affair with a student, a painter who uses his age as an excuse to behave indecorously. But the reader quickly discovers the real transgressions are those of the self against the self.".

"In "The Pump" a woman lies about her love life because she worries over "Abandoned women - all that power turns to ashes when the fire's put out." In "The One True Place" a gay couple shelter a young man, though they understand he will erode their relationship. Bingham's stories are told with a sober reticence and the authority of real-life ambiguity: confusions of desire and morality, ambition and regret underlie each beautifully crafted tale."--BOOK JACKET.