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Sarah Court. Meet the resident.

The haunted father of a washed-up stuntman. A disgraced surgeon and his son, a broken-down boxer. A father set on permanent self-destruct, and his daughter, a reluctant powerlifter. A fireworks-maker and his daughter. A very peculiar boy and his equally peculiar adopted family.

Five houses. Five families. One block.

Ask yourself: How well do you know your neighbours? How well do you know your own family? Ultimately, how well do you know yourself? How deeply do the threads of your own life entwine with those around you? Do you ever really know how tightly those threads are knotted? Do you want to know?

I know, and can show you. Please, let me show you.

Welcome to Sarah Court: make yourself at home.

Davidson (The Fighter) delivers a dark, dense, and often funny collection of intertwined tales that are rewarding enough to overcome their flaws. The five families in the squirrel-infested homes on the titular street are made up of broken and dysfunctional characters. Patience shoplifts for a hobby; daredevil Colin has no sense of fear; hit man Jeffrey was raised in a foster home and might have Asperger's, synesthesia, or some entirely different neurological weirdness; Nick still rankles from the years his father forced him to try his hand at boxing; and Donald is trying to sell a strange box that he says contains a demon. Davidson delivers his story at a leisurely pace with only a hint of gonzo gore, aiming for readers who appreciate nonlinear narrative structure, flawed characters often unsure of their own motivations, and an evocative sense of place.

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Lives of the people who live in five houses in one block on Sarah Court, just north of Niagara Falls, intertwine in these five chapters of tightly packed prose. River man Wesley Hill, who picks up the “plungers,” can’t dissuade his daredevil son, Colin, from going over the falls. Patience Nanavatti, whose basement was blown up by Clara Russell’s pyromaniac foster child, finds a preemie in a Walmart toilet. Competitive neighbors Fletcher Burger and Frank Saberhagen pit their children, pending power-lifter Abby Burger and amateur boxer Nick Saberhagen, against each other athletically. And there’s much more, as Davidson loops back and forth, playing with chronology to finish stories. There is a strong emphasis on fatherhood here, with wives and mothers largely absent, and the masculine bent is particularly obvious in a stupid bet — a finger for a Cadillac — over a dog’s trick. Given that a handful of characters suffer significant brain damage, caused as often by intent as by accident, the introduction of a mysterious alien being seems superfluous. In Davidson’s vividly portrayed, testosterone-fueled world, humans cause enough pain all by themselves.

—Michele Leber