In these six stories, Chris Howard reasserts his talent for evoking the gritty and the apocalyptic with poetic grace. follows two Iraq vets adrift in the civilian life of the Pacific Northwest. witnesses the unexpected death of Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan from the perspective of a local reporter and a photographer rushing to the crash-site in 2000. takes place in Dublin and follows a young outcast named Sailor through grimy, pre Apocalyptic streets as he tries to find the soulmate he hasn't seen since childhood. tells the story of the Manson family from the perspective of one of its members. contemplates the absurdity of war from the point of view of a Blackwater contractor first in the chaos of Iraq and later in the relative peace of the US. The epictitle story follows a mixed-race orphan named Labelle as he wanders north along the Mississippi, ultimately caught in the infamous Starved Rock Massacre in Howard's home-state of Illinois.