In his first collection of stories since , Joseph Epstein delivers all the pleasures his readers have come to expect: stories of ordinary men confronting the moments that define a life, told with the bittersweet humor and loving irony encompassed in the title of the book. These fourteen tales map a very particular world—Jews whose lives are anchored in Chicago—in rich, revealing detail even as they brim with universal longings: complex love affairs and unspoken rivalries, family triumphs and private disappointments. Epstein, who “happens to possess a standup comic’s gift for punch lines” ( ), brings his emphatically grown-up characters to witty, rueful, and charming life. is a marvelous collection from a master of the short form and one of the most distinctive writers working in America today.