With the same grace and lyrical precision that distinguish his vibrant short stories, James McPherson surveys the emotional upheaval of his last twenty-one years. From Baltimore, Maryland, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Iowa and Japan, Crabcakes witnesses McPherson's confrontation with the past, and his struggle to make sense of it and to bind it, peacefully, to the present. His elliptical search for meaning -- and his ultimate understanding of what makes us human -- finds in Crabcakes a powerful and enduring voice.

With the same grace and lyrical precision that distinguishes his vibrant short stories, McPherson surveys confrontation with the past and his struggle to make sense of it and to bind it, peacefully, to the present.

Felipe Nieves The Cleveland Plain Dealer As in the dazzling stories of Elbow Room...the writing is clean and crisp....The imagery is spare and on occasion disarmingly moving in its evocative power.