Catharine Savage Brosman, emerita professor of French at Tulane University, has published 35 lauded books of poetry, essays, literary criticism, and scholarship. This volume is her first book of fiction. Readers will find in these stories her familiar territory of New Orleans, the Southwest, and France. Comments on An Aesthetic Education Readers of Catharine Brosman's poetry will discover in this collection of her short fiction a new manifestation of her unique talent: a gift for story-telling matched with a shrewd insight for shaping compelling, wholly believable characters. These readers will, however, appreciate, as well, the same virtues that also mark her poetry: elegant style, a vision of the world that blends skeptical sophistication with generous sympathy, and an inerrant ear for representing the language that men and women actually speak. ..- R.V. Young, Professor Emeritus of English, North Carolina State University, former Editor of Modern Age I tried to take a preliminary look at some of these seventeen stories, sampling a few lines at the beginning of each before going back and reading in full. I couldn't do it-had to go on and finish every time. These are chiseled, powerful stories-the accomplished prose of an accomplished poet. - Donald Mace Williams, journalist (Newsday) and novelist Catharine Savage Brosman does a splendid book. Her continued work is a gift to readers. - Marc A. Jolley, Director, Mercer University Press After years of publishing some of the most elegantly incisive and insightful poetry, literary criticism, and travel writing in America, Catharine Savage Brosman now brings readers her first collection of short fiction, and it comes equipped with the wit, sophistication, fearlessness, and good judgment to be found in her previous work. -Randall Ivey, author of A New England Romance and Other SOUTHERN Stories.