The Complete and Utter Truth About the World and Everything In It is a collection of dark-humored short stories, sometimes whimsical, sometimes passionate, about a variety of relationships set in different times and cultures. The stories tell of things going wrong in the pursuit of pleasure, a child's understanding of suicide, wanting someone, who doesn't want you, infidelity, an adolescent girl and her changing relationship with her family, the conflict of love and lust with social status in times gone by, how to discuss what happens when people take their clothes off, and Planet Earth as seen by an alien.