Ivan E. Coyote has developed a reputation as one of North America's most disarming storytellers; her tales of life as an out dyke on the roads and trails of the North as well as rural America are rich in their plainspoken, honest truths. In Loose End, her third story collection, Ivan focuses her attention on the city: urban life, specifically in the East End of Vancouver, a diverse neighborhood of all types—old, young, gay, straight, white, black, Asian—communing at local coffee bars over hot rods, the art of skinny-dipping, and changes in the weather. Ivan presides over this circus of activities with her cool gaze, whether it's trying to impress the woman with the hot tub next door, or showing her mother how to use a cordless drill.

Ivan's world is the world of being out and open and unafraid; it's also a world in which no ghettos—racial, cultural, or defined by sexuality or gender—exist. With the calm, observant eye of a master...