In this "intriguing collection of 13 short stories" (Library Journal) Chinese-American poet and author John Yau tackles the problems of being an outcast from society and of the essential difficulty of establishing communion with another human being ? large problems, to say the least.Yau, who again deftly captures both the city that he famously haunts (New York City) as well as a variety of other settings, tells these ambitious stor- ies through thirteen different first-person narrators, including in his worlds cockroaches, students, prostitutes, and Norman Rockwell. Yau's ability as a writer is abundantly evident throughout; as Publishers Weekly noted, "[There is] a certain deadpan sensibility whether he's being plain ('A hundred and forty dollars, seven crisp twenties') or perverse ('I guess it's one thing to sleep with a dog, and another thing to sleep with a guy dressed up like a dog') . . . . Throughout, there is a self-consciousness about the difficulty and boundlessness of fiction, as well as an implied glorification of those living off the proverbial beaten path."