I can say it consists of short stories whose characters are animals. But they're clearly not animals - they're actually personality types, characters you might know from life that Sedaris is personifying as animals.
My favorites stories were: "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk," "The Vigilant Rabbit," "Vomit-Eating Flies," & "The Judicious Hen."
Most of the stories are almost like fables, there's a moral to take away from them. The moral, across all stories, tends to be, "don't be that guy." These are personalities that have gone wrong somewhere and now are wreaking havoc on themselves and those around them.
A good example is "Vigilant Rabbit." There are all these creatures in a forest that are having troubles with their neighbors. They want to build a fence to keep the unwanted out. Suddenly, a rabbit assumes the role of protector of the area and takes it to heart, a lot to heart. He is going to guard this forest at all costs. And he keep some unwanted things out too. But then, a unicorn tries to enter - and so yeah okay who believes in unicorns??? but that's kinda the point. This rabbit guards the wall, but he can't exercise his own judgment, simply nothing past.
The unicorn is so fantastical and absurd a creature that one might expect this "challenge" to the rabbit's authority to make him less adamant, less insistent. Or, you might say, that the unicorn is considered the ultimate symbol of good luck and fortune and that the rabbit might be so impressed that one is actually standing before him. But rabbit continues to say "no one shall pass me."
So - this is an example of "don't be that guy." Vigilance - at times a good quality - in rabbit has gone horribly wrong.
"Vigilant rabbit" is also a good example of the mixture of somber thought and absurd humor that Sedaris weaves in these stories. Sometimes it is over the top, sometimes it hits closer to the mark. Throughout though it is a little hokey. But mostly I didn't mind that. However, I would say that absurd beats out somber in this book for the most part. Sedaris doesn't always succeed in creating the very difficult to create: dark humor.
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