Taking its title from a group of stories that begin the book, BREAM GIVES ME HICCUPS moves from contemporary LA to the dorm rooms of an American college to ancient Pompeii, throwing the reader into a universe of social misfits, reimagined scenes from history, and ridiculous overreactions. In one piece, a tense email exchange between a young man and his girlfriend is taken over by the man’s sister, who is obsessed with the Bosnian genocide; in another, a college freshman forced to live with a roommate is stunned when one of her ramen packets goes missing.