The story that lends its title to the volume is a madcap, fast-moving tale of a down-and-out, modern-day Bonnie and Clyde who happen to stumble on the rich life they've always yearned for, when they find a subway to another world. "Every Angel Is Terrifying" takes up the tale of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" right after the closing line of that classic, following the Misfit on his further misadventures, which acquire a celestial or infernal tinge. Rewriting history to include female vigilantes that function like high-minded KKK riders is the goal of "The Invisible Empire."

The tale original to this collection is "Powerless," which tracks a hapless amateur inventor intent on producing an engine of limitless free energy. Time travel and Hollywood have always been a potent combo, and "It's All True" finds a film-director manqué from the late 21st century seeking out Orson Welles in his prime. Together, "The Red Phone" and "Downtown" span five pages of gonzo flash fiction.

A capsule history of the entire 21st century is presented through the medium of a biography of one consequential man, Andrew Steele, known as "The Last American." A mimetic tale of college life and love circa 1968 is what we find in "The Snake Girl."

A quartet of linked stories examines life on the colonized moon, in a world where "a gender-differentiated anarcho-social democracy" that resembles a matriarchy with twists holds sway. "The Juniper Tree" tracks the fates of a father and daughter who immigrate from Earth and have trouble adjusting. "Stories for Men" anatomizes the life of Erno, born into the system but destined to rebel. "Under the Lunchbox Tree" details what happens when a willful young woman tells a hurtful lie. And "Sunlight or Rock" picks up Erno's tale after his exile from his native crater.

Rounding out the volume is "Pride and Prometheus," a conflation of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley that finds one of the Bennett girls from Pride and Prejudice (1813) enamored of a potential suitor named Victor Frankenstein.

Beyond pastiche into true originality

John Kessel is a professor of writing and allied arts, and like so many authors steeped in the canon, he often finds inspiration in using the works of his illustrious predecessors as springboards for his own fiction. The title story takes off from L. Frank Baum's Oz books. (Dot, the feisty tough girl crook, is Dorothy Gale.) The Austen/Shelley mashup and the O'Connor "sequel" are two additional suspects in this lineup. And, of course, the Welles tale is an homage to a master while not actually emulating style or subject. But none of these excursions in the borrowed vestments of other authors comes across as mere pastiche or parody or literary theft. Instead, Kessel's transmutive, honoring, loving touch raises his mind-warping reconceptions to higher planes of true originality, where his own vision and voice reign supreme. Part of the proof of this is the fact that all of these stories may be read by someone utterly ignorant of the templates and still deliver powerful impacts.

So the postmodern aspect of Kessel's writing that many critics focus on is actually subsumed in the power of his originality. And as if we need further proof, consider the other pieces.

The lunar quartet blends adventure with sociopolitical speculations in a manner that would make Samuel Delany proud. (In fact, Delany's phrase for one of his own novels, "an ambiguous heterotopia," might well be applied here.) The tender and keen-eyed naturalism of "The Snake Girl" places Kessel in a class with any mainstream New Yorker writer you'd care to cite. "The Last American" exhibits a Stapledonian sweep of history, while its innovative narrative form calls to mind some of Stanislaw Lem's "imaginary reviews" and its themes turn Ayn Rand upside down. "Powerless" harks back to the kind of stumblebum-genius tale James Blaylock used to deliver. In short, Kessel is a deft stylist and a master of all his tools, whose range is nearly limitless.

One thing the reader will notice is that, while Kessel can be incredibly humorous, producing laugh-out-loud lines, a dominant tone of tragedy underlies even his lightest moments. From the abortive love affair of "The Snake Girl" to the gruesome ending bestowed on Kitty Bennett in "Pride and Prometheus," Kessel often sees sadness and frustration as the ineluctable accompaniment to the human condition. And yet his tales remain uplifting and indomitable. They really are "the pure product" for discerning readers.