Retired hitman Sidney Holden just wants to live quietly with his true love, Fay. But Fay is kidnapped, and the only person who can help find her is a shady millionaire who wants Holden to steal back his lost fortune. Their agreement puts Holden on a nightmarish trail of twisted love and bitter betrayal.

When compiler Jerome Charyn first read Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, a world of letters opened up to him. It was his first exposure to the full potential of language, rendered breathlessly. In those pages he felt the terror and delight and buzz and ceaseless clatter of the inside of a hornet's head. Here, he shares with us nineteen stories, including one from Augie March, that evoke similar feelings of passion and pain and joy. Selected from some of America's most celebrated Jewish writers, as well as a few lesser known ones, Inside the Hornet's Head is a moving, daring, appealing, and indispensable work.