The Knife Thrower" begins with a community puzzled and bewildered with the knowledge that the infamous Hensch, the knife thrower, is coming to town. Thus begins a tale that explores the deep recesses of desire, the formation of identity and the fascination with controlled (and sometimes not so controlled) danger.

Hensch is an outsider, a transgressor; he has crossed the boundary of his professional code. He has become a fascinating figure because he is on the outside of society, and he has turned his ostracization into a crowd drawing act: "in his early carnival days he had wounded an assistant badly; after a six-month retirement, he returned with his new act." His act draws crowds because it titillates the community's sense of guilty pleasures—tapping into their desire for the ability to watch what one is not supposed to watch and enjoy that which should...