Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. In Gallagher's collection of 12 short stories we enter the working class world depicted by Dreiser and Farrell and, more recently, by Bobbie Ann Mason and Russell Banks. Gallagher finds her characters in laundromats and trailer parks, picking them up at a moment of revelation when suddenly the air is cleared by a profound understanding that cannot change anything. In "Bad Company" Mrs. Herbert, bringing flowers to her husband's grave, confides in a young woman she has met in the cemetery. In doing so she realizes how completely she had shut her husband out of her life. In "Girls" Ada is reunited with Esther, once her best friend. But Esther doesn't remember Ada, who comes to realize that her past has drifted away irreparably. These finely crafted stories, authentic in every detail, deal with constricted, confined lives in an unemotional yet compassionate manner. Clean copy.