Overview

Out where Chicago's sprawl meets the Midwestern plains, two brothers in these four tales cope with painful change, senseless crime, and thwarted love. One of them, Larry, is dreamy and introspective, a budding intellectual; the other, Weller, is an action-oriented engineer and volunteer policeman. The Arsonists A high-school loner plunges into a series of pointless felonies and forces a terrified younger schoolmate to become an accomplice. Weller, a volunteer cop, must fight his own chief before he can hope to stop it all. The Stunt Weller, an ex-Navy pilot, helps a young protégé learn to fly. But he should have known more about his new friend first. The result is spectacular but disastrous. The Return of the Visigoths Vivid daydreams help Larry, 18, escape painful realities. Sometimes he's a handsome cavalier, sometimes a fearless Roman soldier. But his daydreams become real when he meets an older, married woman, and his troubles vanish-until the crash. God's Phone Booth Larry, 12, has a serious problem; it is religion, but he thinks it's sex.