The angel Esmeralda

A finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Story Prize, the first ever collection of "dazzlingly told" (The New York Times) short stories--now available as a trade paperback. Set in Greece, the Caribbean, Manhattan, a white-collar prison and outer space, this "small masterpiece of short fiction" (USA Today) is a mesmerizing introduction to Don DeLillo's iconic voice. In "Creation," a couple at the end of a cruise somewhere in the West Indies can't get off the island--flights canceled, unconfirmed reservations, a dysfunctional economy. In "Human Moments in World War III," two men orbiting the earth, charged with gathering intelligence and reporting to Colorado Command, hear the voices of American radio, from a half century earlier. In the title story, Sisters Edgar and Grace, nuns working the violent streets of the South Bronx, confirm the neighborhood's miracle, the apparition of a dead child, Esmeralda. Nuns, astronauts, athletes, terrorists and travelers, the