Edward Hoagland, best known for his essays, is also an extraordinary writer of fiction, as readers of his stories “The Final Fate of the Alligators” and “Kwan’s Coney Island” can attest. First published in periodicals such as the Paris Review, Esquire, the New Yorker, New American Review, and Saul Bellow’s famous literary magazine, the Noble Savage, Hoagland’s stories amazed readers with their precise language and finely etched characters. Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1955 to today.

Meet the death-defying motorcycle trick riders in the carnival’s Devil’s Tub, a man who keeps an alligator in his bathtub, a Chinese laundryman in search of love at Coney Island, a frontiersman who saves himself from being mauled by a grizzly bear by hiding in a beaver house, three carnies looking for trouble at a rodeo, a washed-out boxer trying to hang onto his career, and dozens of other rich characters. From the crammed and gritty streets of New York City to the bristling wilderness of the Old West, Hoagland’s characters pine, ache, observe, love, learn, and live in such precisely rendered stories that we are transported into each of their peculiar worlds.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.