Stephen Dobyns

A taxi driver (Quaid) pounds Zen parables (if time money, is time the root of all evil?) into his passenger in a high-speed, idiosyncratic tour of their city's ethnic coteries. All the boy wants is to dispose of his date's dead dog and get back to the babe who's so hot she mutters darkly about being a pressure cooker.

While a brutal revolution rampages just outside his mansion, pleasure-seeking doctor Daniel Pavenic hosts a genteel dinner party. When asked about a photograph of a mysterious woman, Pavenic reveals the sordid details of his erotic obsession with the woman, his aging servant Ana Puscasu, and his attempts to dominate her psychologically. As the evening progresses, Pavenic's guests reveal their own dark secrets as well.

A drama about the menace and unease that lurk in small-town America and the inescapable forces that test the patience, fidelity, and even good sense of the most ordinary people.