In Steve Karas' debut collection, an unemployed autoworker finds himself at an elite seminar for aspiring Santa Clauses; an IT specialist eagerly awaits the Mayan apocalypse in his parents' basement as his father descends into dementia. Through fourteen curiously ambivalent studies, Karas methodically examines and reconfigures the core archetypes--dot-com entrepreneurs, hard-striving immigrants, obsessive diner owners--that haunt and dominate the American psyche. Their narratives, set against a dizzying panorama that stretches from the ruins of post-2008 Detroit to the desperate paradise...