Bit by bit Wallace scratched out enough short fiction so that by late 1997 he thought he had a new collection. He told Pietsch he was surprised how dark the stories were since he hadn’t been feeling “particularly dark” in the past few years. He knew that the mini-tales might not please all the readers of his last two books. They were funny but they were not playful or redemptive, qualities many readers had come to associate with his name.
