Evidence

The stories in Evidence are a connected sequence of reminiscences, told out of chronological order, by a single narrator. Kostandin Bitri is a wanderer, uprooted by war from an unnamed eastern European country. As he moves first to Western Europe and then to North America looking for a place to live and an identity, he observes the societies he restlessly inhabits with an uneasy, distrustful eye. Sometimes seeking a foothold or an advantage, sometimes just passing though, he observes the ways people torment and use each other. He sees the worst impulses that humanity tolerates, not only in others but in himself. He relates his experiences in random order as they might occur to him in an evening's conversation with a sympathetic but sometimes horrified listener.