The characters in this story collection are like electrons: as they spin they attempt to overcome their potential differences, they move in and out of each other's orbits, emitting, as they do, a few photons of light. Their efforts, however, are constantly altered, and even undermined, by the unpredictable influence of the outside world's chemical activity. Touching, terrifying, and funny, Lavery's stories are about people trying to understand their place in the world. They are attempts to construct a destiny that is appropriate to the essential mystery behind the first encounter of the principals. For Lavery, it doesn't matter whether stories span minutes or years: everything is enclosed within a first, germinal instant.

John Lavery (1949–2011) was a Canadian fiction writer of national reputation, known for his innovative and playful prose style. In addition to publishing his debut novel, Sandra Beck, with House of Anansi at the age of sixty-one, he was the author of two acclaimed story collections, You, Kwaznievski, You Piss Me Off, and Very Good Butter (a finalist for the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction). An accomplished lyricist and a founding member of the Societé de guitar de Montréal, he recorded his first album, Dignity, shortly before his death in May, 2011.

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