Childhood overseas. Trying to find oneself as an artist. Growing up Latino. Music, musicians, and an eccentric musicologist. A statue, a cigarette, a moustache. A nightmarish piano recital. Abortive romances. Loneliness, silence. The problem of fascism. These are among the subjects evoked in this collection of fourteen pieces, which alternate regularly between "straight," realistic stories and more fantastical, "experimental" kinds of narratives. Emotions range from wistful to satirical.

Is THE PIANIST WHO LIKED AYN RAND minimalist art, or a wicked satire on that material? The stories seem to be about so little, at first, but then the author pulls the reader into very serious considerations of Fascism, assorted kinds of racism, oppression and obsession, including Objectivist Philosophy, existential loneliness and such everyday banalities as campus "abortive romances."

One wonders what those readers who want everything imaginable to happen in a bath of extra adrenalin will make of the stories in THE PIANIST WHO LIKED AYN RAND. But it happens that these stories are about something very important. They're about how we can become content, or make ourselves think we are content, with very little. No wonder the romances are "abortive;" Ayn Rand Memorial Up-front Selfishness can hardly be the basis for pleasurable and lasting human interaction. And the satire sweeps up those thoughtful people, basically of good will, who are completely preoccupied by things that matter very little, while the "public thing" goes down the drain.