Larry Brown's first two volumes of short stories, Facing the Music (1988) and Big Bad Love (1990), firmly established him as a major new figure in the school of American fiction that has alternately been referred to as "Dirty Realism" or "Trailer-Park Fiction." Like the short fiction of such kindred spirits as Raymond Carver and Richard Ford, Brown's stories chronicle the lives of down-and-out men who are most often addled with drink and facing dead ends in their personal and working lives. While Brown has garnered much attention and critical praise for his novels Dirty Work (1989), Joe (1991), and Father and Son (1996), his short fiction offers the best and most sustained glimpse into his world. Setting his stories in working-class, rural Mississippi-a place Clancy Sigal aptly described in the Washington Post Book World (23 December 1990) as "Third World America"-Brown consistently portrays the plights of struggling male characters whose difficulties in life...