In this collection of short pieces, this well-established writer fictionalizes episodes from his life with his typical mix of irony, social critique, eye for detail, and laugh-out-loud humor. He takes on topics from the mundane - why Mexicans arrive late for dinner and how Germans cough more in the theater these days - to the profound - a narcotrafficker's wife's hopes and fears about redemption and revenge, and the troubling find at a sports bar near Dachau.