A disabled trucker builds his dream house from Lincoln Logs. A woman returns from having a mastectomy to find the flea-market trader she loves imprisoned for selling stolen goods. A recent divorcee fantasizes about time travel as she lies in a tanning booth and wishes for a future "unbounded by time and space or custody arrangements." These are some of the people who inhabit the world of Midnight Magic, a collection of the best short stories by Bobbie Ann Mason.

Mason moves quietly through the lives of her Kentucky people, capturing their tangled aspirations and buried disappointments. Men and women struggle with the ironies of modern life in a traditional rural society, trying to cope with fractured families, television evangelism, women's lib, and MTV.