Jonathan Lethem again displays his brilliance in this collection of seven short stories, blurring the boundaries of sci-fi, mystery, and thriller. Tales include Light and the Sufferer, in which a crack addict is dogged by an invulnerable alien; The Hardened Criminals, wherein convicts are used as building blocks for new prisons; and The Happy Man, whose hapless protagonist is raised from the dead to support his family, only to suffer periodic out-of-body sojourns in Hell.