Annoying Stories are annoying to those who don't care for author Daniel Curzon's off-kilter sense of humor or his refusal to stick to only the Left or Right in his presentation of third-rail subjects such as race, religion, feminism, illness, and even death. He'll tell you tales as a kind of 'truth whisperer' despite what the outside world wants you to believe. He can take you to a bucolic, all-American hometown ("Farmersville") and then take you on another visit there, this time a harrowing one. For the author, a fierce, dark laugh seems to be the answer to the pieties that many seek in a one-size-fits-all reality.