and other short stories In his second book, Vagaries of Fate, Robert Michael Congemi continues to express his sense of contemporary life as existential absurdity, as well as to present individual attempts to deal with such a condition. This collection of short stories gives new emphasis to two themes associated with his conviction—the role that human beings at times negatively play in adding to absurdity, and to the moderating, even redeeming quality of appreciating or creating a micro-moment of meaning. Vagaries of Fate features ordinary working and middle class people fo diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds, including civil servants, teachers, tradesmen, social outsiders, and—rather surprisingly—cats.