Dinosaur Caf��

These five stories will leave the reader stunned by unforgettable characters who are by turns superstitious stubborn comic and even grotesque. The setting of these stories: a Macondo-like small town where miracles and would-be miracles can and do happen in a backwater of history which is actually the battle zone of the human heart in conflict with itself. From the title piece in which a shadowy artist on the ceiling of a small town cafe creates murals of a startling and paradoxical richness; to the plaintive monologue of an elderly farm-woman standing in the way of the plow that threatens the graves of babies she has sworn to protect; to the marvelous powers of an overworked faith-healer: these stories---shaped from the lore superstitions and history of the Dakota Germans---reveal the intense inner world of an unknown ethnic group working out its destiny on the immensities of the American prairie.