Moffet's twisted view of the world in this selection of short stories calls to mind the work of T.C. Boyle. His characters are sad, happy, inspired and despairing, but ultimately they fall prey to life's whimsies. His prose is honest and seamless, though he can wander and his narratives sometimes leave you wondering where you are.

Like Boyle, he splashes everything with a heavy dose of irony, although he doesn't use the device as cleverly as T.C. He doesn't seem to like his characters, a flaw because the stores often leave you disengaged. Everything does come together in the book's opening self-titled story. Here is a memorable paragraph:

"I returned to my desk, deleted my last sentence, and typed, 'Babies are adults cut into smaller pieces.' I liked this. I knew it would make an outstanding story, one that would win trophies and change the way people thought about fathers and sons if only I could find another three hundred or so sentences to follow it. But where were they?"