Stories like “Two Talented Bastids,” “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” “Finn,” “On Slide Inn Road,” and “The Answer Man” use the recurring motif of luck. Bad circumstances precipitate many of the stories, prompting the protagonists to wonder why they suffer while others prosper. In “Two Talented Bastids,” the male alien visitor remarks that the aid Laird and Butch extended to Ylla was a matter of luck. The implication that Laird and Butch activated their talent using the aliens’ gift suggests that their success as artists was a matter of luck by extension. Laird’s son, Mark, later reckons with the idea that, unlike his father, he isn’t fated to succeed in his craft. Similarly, Danny Coughlin from “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” and the Brown family from “On Slide Inn Road” are suddenly thrust into precarious situations that continually worsen. Danny reports the location of a murder victim yet is pursued by an investigator who wants an easy conviction. The Brown family’s trip is stalled when the shortcut they take leads to a dead end where bad luck awaits them in the form of two thieves who intend to take their car and leave them for dead.

Conversely, the protagonists of “Finn” and “The Answer Man” demonstrate how luck, though powerful, is a force that one can overcome.