The four short stories and eleven shorts (stories told in four pages or fewer) in this collection combine fantasy and realism in fresh new ways.
The title story is about a high school loner who comes under the influence of a charismatic leader in this coming-of-age contemporary fantasy.
"Hostages" is a story of magic realism about a mysterious street person with a special guitar who must choose between his old isolated, yet rewarding life and the possibility of joining a family which is all-too-eager to accept him.
"The Centerpiece" was inspired by a Kafka short, in which a man is both a human and an inanimate object.
In "The Sacrifice" a man has major regrets about having made the world a better place.
"Caustic Realism" is an amusing story in which the "worst misfits of a deranged world" have very little respect for their creator.
The most important story in this collection might very well be "Dr. Augustine's Surrealistic Story," about a ringleader, a dictator, and a very special circus.
