In this second collection of her short fiction, the author returns to the world she knows so well, and shows us men and women whose lives are in various stages of disarray or disrepair. Divorce and remarriage have altered their landscapes, and they struggle to achieve order with a new set of rules. Stories like “The Nightmare” and “Family Restaurant” explore the minefields of stepparenting and portray the confused struggles – sometimes silent, sometimes not – of the ultimate victims of divorce, the children.
     Several of the stories in this collection have appeared in The Atlantic and Harper’s, and one, Mr. Sumarsono, was included in The Best American Short Stories of 1994.

“Asking for Love delighted me no end. I think ‘King of the Sky’ is one of the most masterful, achieved stories I’ve read in a long time.”
-Alice Munro

”Asking for Love is marked by Roxana Robinson’s characteristic mix of elegance and tenderness.”
-Mary Gordon

Random House, 1996

“[This book] delighted me no end…’King of the Sky is one of the most masterful, achieved stories I’ve read in a long time.” – Alice Munro

From: Publishers Weekly:
“Set in Manhattan townhouses, ancestral country homes and island getaways, the 15 stories in Robinson's second collection (after A Glimpse of Scarlet) serve as clear windows into the posh world of East Coast WASPs. What's revealed within their elegantly constructed frames isn't picture-perfect, however, as the author subtly plumbs modern, often fragmented, family dynamics, and the trials of the unhappily wed, the broken-up and the back-together, as well as the travails of the children who must adapt to them. In "Mr. Sumarsono" (which was included in Best American Short Stories, 1994), Robinson delineates how a 10-year-old girl who believes her single mother to be an embarrassment comes to realize that their houseguest, an Indonesian diplomat, instead views her as a "glowing, self-assured, generous woman." With irony and suspense, "Slipping Away" recounts how a woman conducting a cautious affair is tormented by her husband's spying. Finally, she is worn down from her customarily placid and organized existence into what she considers to be the "landscape of drama and passion" of her Spanish-speaking maid. In "Leaving Home," 13-year-old Alison Thatcher believes herself a "fraud," interpreting the raging emotions of adolescence as proof of her lack of the famous Thatcher quality of integrity. Her subsequent act of rebellion cements her feelings by deliberately breaking from integrity?and from her family. Robinson reveals her characters through a striking combination of nuance, empathy and wit.”
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From: Library Journal:
”Triple-threat author Robinson - she's written a novel (Summer Light, LJ 6/1/88), a story collection (A Glimpse of Scarlet, LJ 6/1/91), and a biography (Georgia O'Keeffe, LJ 9/15/89)?continues her investigation of the upper crust in a new collection of short fiction.”
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From: Cosmpolitan:
“Short stories that expose the desperation under the skin of seemingly invulnerable upper-class, blue-eyed WASPs. Robinson writes like an angel.”