A recently divorced man trying to enjoy himself in one of the trendier districts of Buenos Aires finds himself at the centre a series of strange coincidences. These blips in causality are at first easily rationalised, but soon escalate from the merely implausible to the impossible to the cataclysmic. More, each accident of fate, piling one atop the other, drags a new, rambling tale in its wake, until the very ground beneath the man’s feet seems likely to buckle beneath the weight of so many shaggy dogs. And yet, with master storyteller César Aira holding their leashes, what better vacation from reality could any reader―or divorcé―desire?