Summary

“War Dances” is the longest short story in the collection and is broken into five sections, each of which is titled.

The narrative begins with “My Kafka Baggage,” with the narrator describing his return from a trip to Los Angeles to find a dead cockroach in his bag. The narrator brings his suitcase outside and dumps everything on the sidewalk in case there are more inside. He does not find any, and he feels bad for the cockroach, wondering what it felt as it died.

In the section titled “Symptoms,” the narrator describes suffering from allergies so badly he can barely hear out of his right ear. With his wife away on a trip, it is up to the narrator to care for their sons, ages eight and ten. The narrator feels bad because he does not hear his sons when they first...