'Signifying Nothing' is about a young man who, upon moving out of his parents' house at the age of twenty, suddenly relives a repressed memory from his youth of his father waving his penis in the narrator's face. In the end, the husband doesn't cheat with his wife, less out of faithfulness to her and more because the seductress' attempts to woo him are awkward because she is clearly just repeating lines from books, movies, and TV shows she has seen. While they are away, the husband is seduced by a woman who claims to be the younger sister of his wife's old college roommate. 'Think' is about a husband whose wife and son go out of town. 'The Devil is a Busy Man' is about a narrator whose father finds that it's much easier to get rid of the junk in his garage if he lists the price as $5 or $10 versus offering it for free, which causes people to be overly suspicious of the merchandise. Nevertheless, with each breakthrough, the woman only exacerbates her depression by doubling down on unhealthy habits and thought patterns. She attends therapies and has numerous moments of recognition that could be referred to as breakthroughs. 'The Depressed Person,' is about a woman's struggle with depression. 'Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders,' concerns a narrator who is deeply distressed by a recurring nightmare in which he is blind.

The fourth story is the first of four 'Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.' They are transcripts of interviews with men, but the author only transcribes the answers, while the interview questions are identified only by the letter 'Q.' This first iteration, like the rest, contains multiple interviews with men who recount their difficulties when it comes to dating and relationships. 'Forever Overhead' takes place in Tucson, Arizona, and concerns the pains and tribulations of puberty for a thirteen-year-old boy who goes swimming on his birthday. 'Death is Not the End' speaks in detail about the flabby body and visage of a successful American poet, along with the lush greenery of the plants that surround him in his backyard as he reads an issue of Newsweek magazine. The first story, 'A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,' is only two paragraphs long, introducing the themes of the difficulty of dating, relationships, and social anxiety.

The stories, particularly the four that take the form of the 'Brief Interviews' of the title, have been adapted on both stage and screen, including a 2009 film version directed by John Krasinski. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a 1999 short story collection by the acclaimed American writer David Foster Wallace.

Brief interviews with hideous