After the recent assassination of the President of the United States, the narrator creates a digital simulacrum of him and releases it on the internet, which mitigates the national mourning.
Convinced that Cobain's imitation is real, Charlotte urges him to "don't do what you're thinking about" as the narrator looks on and realize that she would embrace the deceased singer at a moments notice if she could.
A few weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Randall “Nonc” Richard, a UPS truck driver, searches Lake Charles for Marnie, the mother of his two-and-a-half-year-old son, Geronimo.
At an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Nonc and Relle attend to receive free child care services for two hours, she reveals her undying love for him, which he rebuffs due to Geronimo's situation.
The next morning, while making a delivery to the Calcasieu Parish jail, Nonc asks to see Marnie, who he reckons could be imprisoned there.
The next day, he asks Dr. Gaby to assume guardianship of Geronimo so that he and Relle can go to California to pick up his father's car.
As they cross Lake Charles Bridge heading west, Relle tells him to “relax.” A terminally ill wife, the narrator of the story, and her husband return to their Haight home after a bookstore reading.
Hans receives packages of personal items that date back to his time when he was the warden of Hohenschönhausen Prison, before reunification.
One day, he overhears a tour guide telling about how Klaus Wexler, a famous playwright, was tortured in Hohenschönhausen.
The curator states that history would be enriched if he led a guided tour telling of the prison from his perspective; the video of him doing so would be a public record.
He opens up this package; inside are a pair of calf-skin gloves and an aesthetically elegant but confiscated pen from the prison, which he gave to his daughter many years ago as a gift.
While inside, Hans remembers who Berta was in the prison; he had confiscated a valuable ring from her and gave it to his friends's daughter.
The title of the story comes from Brigitte's observation that she is "friends" with George Orwell after she read Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book that had been thrown over the Berlin Wall and brought home by Hans.
Roses flees from the scene, heads home, destroys his computer's RAM, and drives around for the rest of the day, revisiting a few places he went as a Sea Scout.
Both are nostalgia for their old homes; DJ admits that his life was not as miserable as the media makes it out to be because he had an education while Sun-ho is unable to stop thinking about his muse in Pyongyang named Willow.
To ease his lovelorn heart, they take a trip to the DMZ and Sun-ho release balloons with a Whopper meal attached, hoping it will reach her.
For DJ, he encounters Mina, a defector who plays North Korean songs with her accordion in public, at a Christian-sponsored meeting in Gwanak; she says she does this because she is looking for her husband.
When DJ introduces her to Sun-ho, they talk and eventually reveal why they had to leave: a friend warned them that they may be blamed for a sickness spreading in Pyongyang due to their background in production.
When they decide to float more objects past the DMZ, they run into Seo, a similarly minded defector; he wants to drop pamphlets titled "Kim Jong-un Is a War Criminal."
He reveals his hopeful plan to float back into North Korea and reunite with Willow with the help of a belt attached to hundreds of balloons.
Lauren Groff, writing for The New York Times, states that the book "is a collection worthy of being read slowly and, like very good and very bitter chocolate, savored.
"[3] Michael Schaub, writing for NPR, states the collection is "brilliant" and that "great literature isn't about making the reader comfortable; it's about coming to terms with the truth, whether it's beautiful or ugly.
"[4] Don Waters, writing for SFGate, states that the book is "audacious" and "These six long, fearless stories explore dangerous territories"[5] Connie Ogle, writing for the Miami Herald, states that the stories are "distinct and unique, each a perfect marvel of subtlety and precision, each devastating in its own way.
"[6] Ted Weesner Jr., writing for The Boston Globe, offers that "Fortune Smiles" and "Hurricanes Anonymous" "would be fine examples of solid stories in most any other collection, but here they exert less power.