-A work of daunting versatility and technical skill, the product of a writer absolutely at home in the language and working vigorously within both new and old forms.- --Michael Byers, author of Long for this World and The Coast of Good Intentions From Pushcart Prize-winner Valerie Laken, author of Dream House, comes a riveting short story collection charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and lovers, selves and others in the United States and Russia. In the tradition of Lydia Peelle, Barbara Johnson, and David Mitchell, Laken creates incisive and illuminating portraits of characters coping with loss, estrangement, and disability, confined by their circumstances to separate kingdoms of the heart.