This book lets passionate encounters unfold like bits of film. Treacherously comic and poignant, the stories in ""They Change the Subject"" follow a young man's quest for identity through love and desire. Sustained by a single voice, the stories simultaneously offer a fractured novel and stand, powerfully, on their own. At the center of each tale is the heightened, visceral possibility of unexpected emotional encounters - from an escort's dates in Manhattan hotels to a photo shoot that doubles as seduction. Always pushing toward a bigger shiver of passion, Martin's young-man-on-the-make learns how to adapt his persona to suit his lovers' needs and tries to embrace his own experience - and his self - by becoming the purest object of desire.