Callaghan's writing is wide ranging but often takes on the perspective
of a marginalized individual's view of the human experience. These tales
are told in a variety of voices: street hustlers, priests, blues
singers, Holocaust survivors, cross-dressers, paramilitary snipers, even
those we may euphemistically consider the "ordinary"--all of them
authentic, and all would subscribe to the maxim that "happiness is
overrated." The dialogue is true to speech as it is spoken, shot through
with humour, piercing sadness and puzzling beauty.