In Couples, Passersby, the controversial German writer Botho Strauss deftly combines the fantastic and the mundane to depict a society in which people pair off only to find greater isolation and alienation. In Strauss's world love turns not to hate but to indifference, and lovers fade into strangers, indistinguishable passersby in the crowded loneliness of the city streets. The six linked sections of Couples, Passersby present vignettes of frustrated connections and emotional numbness as characters search for meaning in art, in language, and in each other. Throughout Couples, Passersby, Strauss filters the particulars of everyday existence through his singular sensibility to create an arresting portrait of contemporary urban society and the solitary artist's place within it.