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.