tories are dispatches from the front lines of the Anthropocene. They offer insight into a world that, while strange and disturbing, attests to the durability of the human animal. There are poets, private eyes, anthropologists, and hoboes. Life is a lost-and-found in varying states of repair. A small-time drug dealer quits the life and sees the world. An aging gardener is flummoxed by current events. A ventriloquist dummy moonlights as a mannequin in a children's clothing store. Donut shops thrive, industries fail. Dissonance gives way to melody, and God's heart is repeatedly broken and mended. From the Midwest to the Middle East, these are big stories for a small world.