Josip Novakovich has brought the soul of a Southeastern European to American short fiction. He has several times referred to himself as an expressionist, but he may also be considered a realist and, while he is uneasy with the description, a folklorist. Though he told Scott Rhoden that "the folktale style would be totally inappropriate" for him, he finds it "productive to write in village settings . . . that seems to be a folksy thing, but I use it because of its expressivity." Named by the Utne Reader in 1998 as one of the ten writers who is changing the face of fiction, Novakovich has been compared to Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, and Isaac Babel. Because Novakovich often offers a modicum of hope along with wit, wisdom, and postmodern cynicism, some readers might be tempted to dismiss him as merely a village fabulist, but his stories reach deep to places where...