The theme of memory runs through this collection of short stories and for many of the characters the past is a miraculous land perpetually in need of rediscovery The stories concern an America where most are exiles and moving automobiles contain a lot of their lives They move from comic romance to sombre monologue, by way of soliloquies delivered by an angel, an AP clerk and a lifeguard and dialogues between man and his wife, a man and his child, a boy and his mother, a boy and his minister and several quests and hosts The setting is generally Pensylvania