My One and Only Bomb Shelter — John Smolens

The nine stories of John Smolens' third book chart emotional and spiritual boundaries of the human experience. Teenaged boys search for sex, love and bomb shelters amidst the lawns of suburban Boston. A homeless woman pursues the Pope by phone. In the frozen north a prison escape plays out the delicate balance between compassion and betrayal. Set in off-season Cape Cod to the urban streets of Southern California, Smolens' stories often combine the raw force of a blizzard with the emotional confinement of a confessional.