"Murphy's Lovers" and Four Other Stories of Modern Love and

With one exception, "Tryst," these stories were all written in the 1980s and '90s. In all of them the central motif is marital and family relationships. Naturally, they are rife with the kind of anxiety and conflict that seem to be almost inevitable in these relationships, especially in these prosperous modern times when so much that was formerly central to human survival is treated so frivolously now that we live in an age of comfort, convenience, and rampant self-indulgence. The world for our ancestors just a few hundred years ago was different, and they could not take their family relationships quite so lightly--though that is not to suggest that they didn't also abuse those relationships. But their landing spots when they did abuse those relationships weren't quite as cushy as ours are now. 

There's some graphic sex in "Tryst," especially, so let this blurb be a brown paper wrapper of warning to the reader. (For the uninitiated, materials that were considered "sensitive" used to be delivered in brown paper wrappers. I don't think they still are.)