After a lifetime of getting pummeled by his own family and wife, a man gets the last laugh.

In his new job as an English professor, Tarzan finds himself annoyed by his students, hounded by his department chair, and alienated by the world around him, with solace only from his girlfriend Jane. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

A Jewish communist quit working at an editorial bureau where his co-workers are bothered by his leftist ideology because of his boss' praises of him.

When a writer and her old writing professor reconvene in a Mexican restaurant one final time before the professor's death, they experience a night of unwanted encounters and unnecessary criticism that leaves the writer with a bitter taste in her mouth.

A witty high school student experiences daily name-calling, insults, and bullying by his peers. He resolves to defy everyone who undermines him by beating the high jump state record at his school's track meet.

Two narcissistic adult daughters take exception to their wealthy parents' houseguests, a priest mourning his dead lover, and the strange and frumpy American woman Arleen. But Arleen possesses insight into the family that the girls' own parents lack.

In 1960s Boston, a Jewish deli owner who struggles to come up with his newest joke stumbles into a scam with more ramifications than he could have ever dreamed possible.

A new addition to the English department at a university in Canada raises the eyebrows of the staff because of his apparent queerness, and as they strive to uncover his sexuality, their hypocrisy is satirically revealed.

A bitter divorcee and distant father having an affair with a younger, married woman gets a call that his son has gotten into trouble at boarding school. He travels to the school, where the headmaster says his son, who beat up another student, must transfer. In a series of events that makes him increasingly bitter, he ends up making his son's girlfriend cry in a restaurant.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.