Painted in reds, blues, and blacks, here are twelve stories from a writer we are sure to be hearing from for a long time to come, Aimee Parkison. In her debut collection, we see drifters and sad children, bar floozies and a cowboy psychologist, a tattooed woman and a pair of increasingly unidentical twins. But this is no sideshow played for cheap thrills. What comes through most clearly is the dignity of real characters' pain, and the innovativeness of a writer who never sells short the people she creates. Raw, loosely sewn, and sinuous, Women with Dark Horses is a formidable debut.