Self-interest can motivate people to do a lot of horrible things. In this book it leads people to lie, cheat, mock their inferiors, deride newborns, abandon fat people, steal from the terminally ill, apply feces as camouflage, scapegoat children, push over conjoined twins, and hit strangers with clown shoes. In the process, the limits of egotism, the brutality of reflection, the realities of affection, and the ramifications of shortsightedness are explored. Also, there is a love triangle, as well as some stuff about friendship and women and baseball and hemorrhoids and manscaping.