For many years Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth century, not so much for the pictures on the front but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Only Robert Olen Butler could use these brief messages of real people from another age to create fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition.

Contents:

• Hotel Touraine
• Mother in the Trenches
• The Ironworkers' Hayride
• Carl and I
• This is Earl Sandt
• The One in White
• No Chord of Music
• Christmas 1910
• Hiram the Desperado
• I Got Married to a Milk Can
• The Grotto
• Up by Heart
• Uncle Andrew
• Twins
• Sunday