Peter Cameron established himself as a craftsman of the short-story form with the publication of two short-story collections: One Way or Another (1986) and Far-flung (1991). Written in the spare, lean prose style sometimes called minimalist and eschewing description and setting in favor of conversation and fragmentary observation, the stories are "as contemporary as an overheard street conversation," according to Victor Kantor Burg in The New York Times Book Review (22 June 1986). Several stories have been selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories volumes, and a reviewer for People magazine (21 July 1986) called him "one of the form's best practitioners."

Cameron's stories for the most part portray average, middle-class people in various situations of family and personal life, dealing with parents and children, teachers, and friends and sometimes coping with tragedies such as death or the ending of a love affair, as well as with pain and loss that springs from no...