Startlingly original, these hilariously offbeat storylines blend vivid characters with bleakly comical plots that are both human and uncanny. Each memorable character–including the elderly who take to the streets at night for illegal and cathartic electric scooter racing, a copy editor who suffers brain damage from West Nile virus and is suddenly filled with cannibalistic violence and award-winning minimalist poetry, and Mayor McCheese who visits a sexually repressed British couple in the early 1970s and touches their lives forever–contributes to the collection’s unique voice.