Like his well-received debut novel Big Fish, Daniel Wallace's Ray In Reverse is an episodic collection of vignettes that deconstruct a man at the end of his life, tangentially examining who he was and why. Unlike Big Fish, Ray In Reverse doesn't open with a man on his deathbed; Ray is already dead, and he's being a jerk about it. In the book's first segment, he's a bitter, belligerent soul in heaven, attending and upsetting a discussion group in which members share their last words. Under his relentless questioning, several members reluctantly admit that they fictionalized their accounts to cast themselves in a better light. As subsequent chapters reveal, both the confrontational attitude and the refusal to accept comfortable fictions are unlike Ray, who devoted much of his life to avoiding conflict and sublimating aggression. His awkward, detached life unfolds in reverse throughout the book, as each successive story delves further into his past. In the second chapter, he's still alive, dodging the issues surrounding his impending death and lifelong alienation from his family. As Ray In Reverse progresses, he becomes an emotionally distant young father and then a sexually confused teen. Only in the final stories, as a child, is he capable of facing up to his responsibilities, acting on his desires and dealing directly with people. Each barbed, bittersweet story stands on its own (some were previously published as independent works), and together they track Ray's gradual alterations without always validating or even explaining his behavior. A few key moments are scattered throughout Ray In Reverse, but most of the stories are wryly illustrative rather than causative. Still, the book is satisfyingly intimate: Where the stylized fairy tales of Big Fish were deliberately artificial and mannered, Ray In Reverse is a casual, personable collection that inserts gentle humor and a sharp ironic bite into a quirky linear tapestry that's touching and heartening, if not always enlightening.