An archeologist, the middle-aged relic of an initially promising career, is languishing in his bathtub when he is visited by a vision of Atlantis. An accountant, having learned of the eventual and inevitable explosion of the sun, sets himself obsessively to tallying his clients’ financial indiscretions in a private ledger of apocalyptic judgment. The parasitic Guinea worm brings together, for a brief romantic interlude, a medical student and a young woman plagued by lifelong skin problems.

In these and nine other stories, author Avel turns her dire and tender gaze on the sudden irruption of singular dilemmas in her characters’ lives. Each tale, with its focus on one character, closely follows its ordinary protagonist’s very human foibles and eccentricities as he or she attempts to reconcile what’s happened with the rest of life. With nimble affection and a mischievous wit reminiscent of Ann Beattie’s classic collection Distortions, Avel succeeds in succinct yet sympathetic portraits of people navigating everyday neuroses and compulsions.