Our hero Alby flails wildly against the world around him --- he punches his sister (she deserved it), "unprotectos" broads (they deserved it and liked it), gets drunk and picks fights (all deserved), defends defenseless creatures both large and small, and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. In each of these stories, Alby distills the anguish, terror, humor and strange grace --- or lack of --- he experiences in the aftermath of his mother’s death.