Brian Swann’s previous collection, Dogs on the Roof (MadHat Press, 2016), was praised by Jackson Lears for being venturesome, witty, delightedly understated and frequently compelling, while Andrei Codrescu, calling it an elegant suit of a variety of threads, placed it on his A-list of the blooming philosophical hybrids of the last decade. The San Antonio Express-News said that it was a fascinating miscellany … replete with brilliant observations … insightful, witty and outlandishly entertaining.

The present collection ranges from real to surreal, from long short stories to short short stories, to prose-poems long and short, concluding with an essay on the sacred. The book stretches from New York and New Mexico to Italy and England, with a cast of characters that includes a gifted dwarf, hippies, Navajos, and the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles, as well as a talented parrot, a talking robin, a shaggy dog, a neurotic horse and a law case involving rats. There is also a cameo appearance by the soul.