Who doesn't dream of escape, whether to defy the strictures of a conventional or restricted life, to outrun the fates, to pursue an extraordinary goal, or, most inevitably, to distance oneself from the suffering, loss, and pain that unavoidably bear down on our lives. Now Escape is the first collection to bring together a wide array of the very finest stories about this universal impulse. Photographs and selections range from the comic to tragic, covering escapes from reality, domesticity, matrimony, intimacy, materialism, rules, and dependence, as well as escapes into hedonism, addiction, beauty, spirituality, intimacy, art, nature, and science. With the same mix of stellar short stories, novel excerpts, and narrative nonfiction that characterized Beach and Sail Away, Escape includes such writers as Isabel Allende, Isaac Babel, Harold Brodkey, Michael Chabon, Jamaica Kincaid, D.H. Lawrence, David Malouf, and others.