Two sisters play an unsettling game; a child witnesses a casually violent neighborhood ritual; an up-and-coming young professional is disturbed by the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings; a woman's ideal life unfolds in the pages of a mail-order catalog. The Midwestern men and women, girls and boys who populate Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse and Other Stories are united by a yearning-for answers or simply for relief-that is often twisted by their baser impulses. With lyricism, humor both dark and playful, and brutal clarity, Heidi Bell approaches reality sideways in her sensational debut collection.