The Cornelius Arms

Charm and setting reminiscent of early-90s Seattle.... The fourteen stories in this powerful new collection create a vivid, often startling portrait of contemporary Seattle. Set throughout the city's varied and colorful neighborhoods, the stories focus on the residents of a downtown apartment building: from an aging tenant organizer to a breeder of butterflies, and emigre artist to a deluded newspaper pressman, an alcoholic Mormon woman to a disillusioned college professor, a lonely secretary to a lovelorn delivery boy, a pair of roommate junkies to a gang of skinheads, an evicted Indian maskmaker to an octogenarian husband and wife. These prize-winning stories depict working and out-of-work people in conflict with themselves and their urban surroundings--struggling to preserve their dignity and, with any luck, pay the rent.