To fill gaping holes in their lives, the protagonists in The Quantum Theory of Love and Madness embark on bizarre quests that ultimately lead them astray. Whether a child savant who sings the lyrics to hundreds of songs (and never talks), a woman who has to decide whether to turn in her arsonist brother, a failed writer whose fictional character suddenly comes to life, an unhappy insurance examiner who discovers a fallen angel and decides to cash in on his find, or a successful, middle-class man who pines for the poet he once was, nothing is sacred in this collection of stories. Myth and imagination hold equal weight, authenticity and fable go hand-in-hand, and the lines between reality and illusion blur. Characters find themselves trapped, or at least, incapable of restoring their humanity. It may be sobering to observe such forays into darkness but underlying their failures is a tacit suggestion that perhaps they could have won out with more imagination, more strength, or simply with some encouragement. And some do; amidst the carnage of those who fail and disappear emerge some who acquire new strength to reconnect with the world.
