Nancy Zafris is a critically acclaimed writer because of the highly distinctive, piercing intelligence that underlies her works. Her gifts accumulate in a vision that somehow combines just the right amount of irony, subtle humor, and compassion for characters you won't see anywhere else in contemporary fiction. Those characters are emotionally all over the map resolute, sympathetic, and indelible - their stories can be laugh-out-loud funny one minute and bittersweet the next. In The Home Jar , Zafris reconfirms herself to be among the keenest observers of the human condition around. This is her first short story collection since the critically acclaimed The People I Know , which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and her most famous work, the New York Times notable novel The Metal Shredders . Zafris's very loyal following of readers will herald The Home Jar as a major event in American letters.