HIGHWAY TRADE

John Domini is one of those rare writers who doesnt bend his characters towards his own pre-determined ends, but follows where they lead. In lesser hands, Dominis people would have been drowned in bathos. But Domini honors them with a generous but unsentimental imagination, giving us lives worth knowing about, layered portrayals of the obdurate world and our own terrifying self-betrayals. His profound, unflinching attention reminds us how closely together fiction, at its best, can unite justice with mercy. Jay Cantor John Dominis densely textured stories teem with compelling inner and outer life. He is a master at capturing the complex workings of minds under stress and the hard-edged negotiations we make with fate when our backs are against a wall. He knows how women and men can behave with one another. The stories move swiftly and sinuously, emerging from the everyday to coil around a readers heart. Floyd Skloot Fiery, crackling prose. Dominis writing wields a double-bladed humor that is both fearsomely entertaining and pleasurably dark. Highway Trade is a sharp and compassionate work; unforgettable. Diana Abu-Jaber