 According to the publisher, "the collection is calculated to reflect the sixty minutes in an hour of heightened imaginative contemplation.It contains memories of violence, historical episodes, humorous reflections, quiet despair, violent discord, public outrage, and private nightmares.A cast of fugitive characters share their desperate lives—failed novelists, forgotten literary critics, puzzled historians, armed robbers, jobless alcoholics, exasperated girlfriends, high school dropouts, drowned children, and defeated boxers.