The stories of Dead Dog Lying shine a hard light on society's misfits: the misshapen in mind and body, children mystified by the adult world, and grownups trying--but never quite managing--to get it right. A man receives a message from a cell phone swallowed by a fish he's caught. A boy grows antlers that give him athletic prowess. A fiction writer learns about reality by walking into an improv play. Long after these allegorical stories are ingested, they will haunt the reader's troubled sleep.