Callaghan's writing is wide ranging but often takes on the perspective of a marginalized individual's view of the human experience. These tales are told in a variety of voices: street hustlers, priests, blues singers, Holocaust survivors, cross-dressers, paramilitary snipers, even those we may euphemistically consider the "ordinary"—all of them authentic, and all would subscribe to the maxim that "happiness is overrated." The dialogue is true to speech as it is spoken, shot through with humour, piercing sadness and puzzling beauty.