Short Story by Graham Greene. A street gang meets daily to plan acts of mischief around London. A new member successfully challenges the leader and, in suggesting the destruction of an old man’s stately two-hundred-year-old house, elevates the boys’ mischief from harmless fun to wanton vandalism and cruelty.
Short Story by Bharati Mukherjee. A fictional account of how families of Canadian-Indian passengers coped in the aftermath of the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182. Told through the eyes of a woman who lost her husband and two sons, the story lampoons the Canadian government’s insensitive, “textbook” approach to grief management.
Short Story by Shirley Jackson. A woman visiting New York with her husband panics after falsely thinking a building they were in was on fire. She loses confidence among the crowds, and imagines decay everywhere. When the couple discover a body part on a beach, she spins out of control.
Short Story by Guy de Maupassant. A heartless old washerwoman has a side job nursing fellow villagers as they approach death. She normally charges by the day, but when forced into agreeing to a flat fee she has a 'devilish' way of helping her patients move along a little sooner.
Novelette by Stuart Dybek. An urban myth about a “saintly” girl encased in a block of ice ties together a story about urban decay and social change in a 1970s Chicago neighbourhood. The drug and alcohol-fueled rescue and “release” of the ice-girl symbolizes hope for change and a better future.