The characters in Jane McCafferty's Director of the World and Other Stories are often distanced, lonely, or displaced from others and the events around them, yet they are almost always ready to act, to become involved with others, and to change. In "Eyes of Others," a woman, stopping with her family at a Howard Johnson's during a trip, becomes fascinated by the meeting of two strangers and attempts to connect with them as she has been unable to connect with her own family. Implicit in these stories is a rootlessness that gives way to yearning and a passion for remembering. In the title story,