Over the course of his career, Jack Cady won the Bram Stoker Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, a special award from the International Horror Guild, the Atlantic Monthly "First" award, the Iowa Prize for Short Fiction, the National Library Anthology Award, and the Washington State Governor's Award. Cady's keen and profound insight into the collective psyche of the modern world—both from a narrative standpoint and from a critical cultural analysis—are captured in this collection.

Fathoms includes his Nebula Award and Bram Stoker Award winning novella, "The Night We Buried Road Dog," as well as his lengthy non-fiction piece, "Some Remarks on the Literature of War," a reflection on his childhood influences ("Halloween 1942"), and a story that visits the world of our imaginary childhood friends ("A Poet in the School"). To Jack Cady, the world is much like a deep ocean, filled with dreams and nightmares. His stories never lose sight of the marvelous mystery of the fantastic.