The History of the Baker's Dozen, as the title suggests, bristles with stories full of excess and want. In "Albatross," a beautiful former lifeguard, at a class reunion, confesses her ongoing wish to rescue a boy who drowned on her watch. In the title story, a baker, despite the number of doughnuts he adds to each dozen, cannot satisfy his customers. "Extant's" aging married couple long for a renewal of desire in a house formerly owned by a well-known pornographer. An underprivileged college student, in "Beauty," earns a supplemental income by exploiting customers who fantasize about photographs of her sexualized feet.

What an otherwise wide variety of characters share is a struggle with satisfaction. No matter the situation, from coming-of-age to mid-life to old age, the desire for more is ever-present. By turns, these engaging characters deal with anger, frustration, sexual desire, cultural shifts, work issues, and an assortment of other common issues deepened and made singular, even in these very short stories, by close precise observation.