In this collection of powerful and deeply humane short stories, Jim Ray Daniels' characters struggle to find themselves in a society that has cast them aside. As they make their way under the permanently gray skies of Michigan's lower peninsula, they try to come to terms with their lives, searching for a pleasant place, for someone who will love them or will simply make them feel safe. The eleven stories in Mr. Pleasant, the latest offering from the author of the award- winning Detroit Tales, are bleak, funny, and bittersweet-- sometimes all at once.