Roy is a lover of adventure movies, a budding writer and a young man slowly coming of age without the benefit of a father. Surrounding him - for better or worse - is the adult world of post-war Chicago, a city haunted by violence, poverty and the redeeming power of the imagination. Mixing memoir with fiction, the 42 short stories in Sad Stories of the Death of Kings bring a city - and a boy's growing consciousness - to vivid, unflinching life.