The stories in this collection are a celebration of eccentricities: they feature characters who defy conventions, and who listen to their inner selves instead of conforming to familial and societal norms. There is the mother who swims endlessly to escape domesticity and abuse; an exceptional father and husband who leaves on a quest for selfhood; the thief who heals dogs and trees; the government clerk who goes around town counting pigeons; the man who walks only backwards; the estate-owner who builds a house with a hundred windows on a hilltop, but not for anyone to live in; the father and the son who measure rain; the forgotten poet who is despised by his own family; and many others whom the world does not understand.