This diverse book of linked stories is filled with off-centre characters and their flaws and burdens. Read about a one-armed baseball player, anosmiatics, a colour blind photographer, a time pusher and his best customer, intruders, the grape-picking diaspora, the whippet police, tree planters lost in the slash, a one-handed mechanic with a reputation to uphold, and many more. Also contained in this collection are the definitive ’How-To' guide to building a wall and tales of writers getting real jobs (William Faulkner drives a cab, Mikhail Bakhtin becomes a clown). With a craftsman's skill, Brown moves from hilarity to foreboding, often within a single page.