From a young man grappling with the Kennedy assassination to a battle-weary Vietnam flyer, a ship's officer off Tierra del Fuego to a homesick soldier in war-torn France, we meet recovering alcoholics, aspiring actors, pimps and pols and busted-up football players-people who try to rebuild shattered lives on a landscape scarred by war, littered with fatal fires and shuttered steel mills, populated by dying sweethearts and unfaithful brides.

In the tour-de-force title story, a young Lakota travels back in time to perform the Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee. Mendocino to Boston, Broadway to the French Quarter, Ghost Dancer spans the Twentieth Century, and the globe, showing us the choices we make-and the consequences we face.