As a reader with an acquired taste for vertically challenged paramours (and I mean you), this book is a rare treat. I right away found Double Header inviting, for the mere fact that it’s a double feature arranged such that there is no back cover. Just like life; you flip it over and you find yourself at an entrance to something different and unexpected. The premise of Tiny Ron made me chuckle, being the butt of nineteen short jokes on an average day. The psychology of a midget- excuse me, [little person] is squeamish territory seldom visited by fictionistas (is that a word?), and Suzanna Burns does so with sympathy and realism. I found Tiny Ron to be the more captivating story of the two. An Acquired Taste—a romance between a magician and a neurotic lady who eats non-edible objects—makes a nice A-side/B-side balance with Tiny Ron, both being tales centered around an unlikely romance (is that a genre?) and more specifically, unlikely matrimony. A normal sized female reporter is seduced by a journalistic subject who happens to be the world’s smallest man…a widow falls impulsively in love with a ravenous consumer of broken glass, dirt and over-sized coins while still distantly mourning the death of his anorexic wife… Double Header offers a fresh look at romantic relationships and the futilities inherent in the search for bliss thereof, and the humor inherent in futilities. In Tiny Ron, the central plot point of the story is the pair’s search for the fabled midget-village during a honeymoon road trip to the Oregon coast, and the irritations that arise through their questioning its existence. Their interactions — including but not limited to the use of a birdcage for non-bird-related plot points — are hilarious and painfully true to life. Like I intimated, I’m clueless as to what a book review actually is — would it be appropriate to ramble through an interpretation of the allegorical meaning of their search for the midget village? It’s safer to just say that Tiny Ron is a poignant and original story that will linger with you. An Acquired Taste, although inventive and fascinating as a psychological study, is a little less digestible, so to speak, as far as connecting with the characters. And I had to read over the last couple paragraphs several times. I read Tiny Ron first, but I recommend that you read this book in the opposite order as I did.