Edward P. Jones

In fourteen sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern...

Edward P. Jones sits down with Wyatt Mason to discuss his collection, All Aunt Hagar's Children. Carmen De Lavallade reads an excerpt from the book.

"[This book] is the remarkably mature and agile debut story collection from James Alan McPherson, one of America's most venerated and most original writers. McPherson's characters--gritty, authentic, and pristinely rendered--give voice to unheard struggles along the dividing lines of race and poverty in subtle, fluid prose that bears no trace of sentimentality, agenda, or apology."--From publisher's description.

A lot can happen on the way from one place to another, especially when an overnight flight makes for an unexpected romantic encounter between strangers seated together; a trucker finds life beyond the ranch where he grew up; and a bored Midwestern housewife tries to escape Kansas City. This anthology of tales about people in transit features Stuart Dybek's "Pet Milk", read by Keith Szarabajka; Martha Gellhorn's "Miami-New York", read by Joanna Gleason;...