With a cast of eccentrics that rivals "The Royal Tenenbaums", Alone in the Company of Others is about people and their treasured possessions—a running tape recorder, a collection of diplomas, an attic full of disfigured mannequins, or shelves and shelves of books in an all but abandoned public library—and the distinctive role that each of us plays as part of a group dynamic. The book questions where each of us essentially exists—within the singular, the plural, or both.