Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award, Antonya Nelson's debut collection of stories displays the off-beat perceptions, the humor, and the sensibility that have won the author not only critical acclaim but a host of devoted readers.
Most of the stories in The Expendables are about marriage -- marriage in process, about to be, about not to be anymore, possibly transgressed, and decidedly not transgressed. In the title story, a teenage boy participates in the spectacle of his sister's second marriage. In "Dog Problems," a husband muses about his wife's attachment to her dog, a bond...

Nelson's acclaimed second collection of short stories portrays women whose lives have slipped from their moorings and who are unsure about what direction to take, and the men who are unable to anchor or touch them.