With a distinctive and original voice, Mark Richard's stories capture characters on the fringe of society, and illuminate the goodness at the heart of their Southern, down-and-out lies. Full of startling images and harrowing epiphanies, The Ice at the Bottom of the World is a collection by a true master of his craft. In these ten stories, Mark Richard, winner of the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award, emerges as the heir apparent to Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

In the brilliant idiom of a modern Melville or Conrad, an odyssey of discovery by a bold and outrageous talent--the PEN/Hemingway Award--winning author of "The Ice At The Bottom Of The World.

This book makes a stimulating contribution to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. It begins with a spirited defense of the view that propositions are structured and that propositional structure is "psychologically real." The author then develops a subtle view of propositions and attitude ascription. The view is worked out in detail with attention to such topics as the semantics of conversations, iterated attitude ascriptions, and the role of propositions as bearers of truth. Along the way important issues in the philosophy of mind are addressed.