Thirty stories in the incomparably distinctive voice of the author whose publishing career started with the comic novel Rappaport. One story starts with ''I won a house in a lottery'', and proceeds to career seemingly out of control - except it isn't. Other stories open in equally startling fashion. Try: ''Hergesheimer flees his marriage in a twenty - four - year - old car …''; ''How do you steal from a thief ?''; ''Show me a man without tan - trum and I'll show you a man without blood''; ''The prettiest damsel in many a moon drops a smile in Hergesheimer's direction, which he, ever the gallant, snatches expertly up, with a bow courteously returns.''