Jim Gold excels as a writer in the joys of improbability. His stories seize upon the most unlikely of heroes and heroines, and plunge them into situations none of us could ever imagine. They come to us with a hilarious assortment of odd backgrounds, very strange attitudes, and utterly surprising needs and ambitions. Some of them are people. Some are animals, and others plants. There are guys and gals who worry about their sex lives or their deaths, a talking turnip, a cloud with Oedipal problems, a whole world of vivid creations. And they're all inescapable, irresistible--a tangle of living neurons and flesh we can't help but be drawn to because they so often, and so surprisingly, remind us of ourselves. These invented souls hint of our own needs, our own frailties. . .and our own triumphs. They will leave you a happier soul.