My Own Devices is a concept book: a series of stories in which the main character, Corey Frost, is left to his own devices in Japan, St. Petersburg, Sumatra, Macau, Montreal, and other locations. His devices include various telephones, cameras, tiny Japanese cars and mini-disc recorders, as well as a backpack full of witty, occasionally satirical literary gimmicks. It's a fun, irreverent take on the first-collection cliché, full of post-colonial unpredictability and tinged with début-de-siècle angst.