Twelve stories, about a tenant who commits suicide in the garage, a housewife who inadvertently gives away a box of medical supplies intended for Sudan, a feckless young man's relationship with a stroke victim, a boy's obsession with his parents' female boarder, a confessional dinner party, a property appraiser who believes the end of the world is near, a young man who returns home to find his parents have given away his room, a man who discovers the meaning of life on the roof of his house . . .