The nature poet -- Above and beyond -- The chimney sweep -- The worker's fist -- Diving record -- Progress -- Unlike Sofia Coppola -- Our system -- Turin, 1962 -- Concerto for a corpse -- The Flemish engraver's son -- The children's book -- Obligation -- Hostage situation -- The sweeper -- Herb's place -- No -- The death of Inspector Pirenne -- The sulfer baths -- Last line -- In equilibrium -- Hand-me-downs -- Accepted donations -- The furniture owner's son -- Two hats -- Dead language -- The clock tower -- Commentary -- Explanation -- Vindicated -- In the house of the cryptoporticus -- In a vat -- Divergence from Lescanne -- Ice climbers -- Practical joke -- The Tallinn Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Reproduction -- Footsteps -- Nematodes -- Verb inflections in an Algonquin dialect -- Controll -- Siegel's shoes -- Breathing problems -- The conversationalist -- The stipulation -- Resemblance -- Correspondence -- A bad Modigliani -- Find and replace -- The family Rivulidae -- The Uppsala school of meteorology -- The Konigsberg building -- Talent -- Exploitation -- Peace plan -- The inverted pyramid -- Figments -- The constitutional law scholar's traits -- Salvageable -- Masters -- Something to genetics -- Assisted living -- Vengeance -- A nightmare -- Vanished -- The family shiraz -- Abuse -- Legacy -- Crush -- The Ottoman historian's head -- The labor historian's head -- Improvement -- Printing error -- The end of Evans -- Utterly inscrutable -- The madman's time machine -- Fleischman's predicament -- The Balkan historian -- Grief -- Two museums -- Order matters -- Determinism -- Betrayal -- Disagreement -- Shimura's robot -- Human consumption -- Stunt -- The performing arts -- In sympathy -- The fourth sonata -- Partial temples -- Capital -- Strassberg & Strassberg -- Doubts -- Regret -- Poignant -- Middle ground -- The Brentano tales -- The Bosnia project -- The flying contraption -- Normalcy -- Tone -- Patrilineal -- Decision-making -- Philanthropy -- Precision -- An asymmetry -- Groomed -- Unfinished things -- Sanctuary -- Groundwork -- Parrot care -- Exhaustion -- Last wishes -- Last words -- A memorial on the River Havel -- Unrest.

Adam Ehrlich Sachs's Inherited Disorders is a rueful, absurd, and endlessly entertaining look at a most serious subject--the eternally vexed relations between fathers and sons. In a hundred and seventeen shrewd, surreal vignettes, Sachs lays bare the petty rivalries, thwarted affection, and mutual bafflement that have characterized the filial bond since the days of Davidic kings. A philosopher's son kills his father and explains his aphorisms to death. A father bequeaths to his son his jacket, deodorant, and political beliefs. England's most famous medium becomes possessed by the spirit of his skeptical father--who questions, in front of the nation, his son's choice of career. A Czech pianist amputates his fingers one by one to thwart his father, who will not stop composing concertos for him. A nineteenth-century Italian nobleman wills his ill-conceived flying contraption--incapable of actual flight--to his newborn son. In West Hollywood, an aspiring screenwriter must contend with the judgmental visage of his father, a respected public intellectual whose frozen head, clearly disappointed in him, he keeps in his freezer. Keenly inventive, but painfully familiar, these surprisingly tender stories signal the arrival of a brilliant new comic voice--and fresh hope for fathers and sons the world over.