Book excerpt: Meet Brazzi and Company, an assortment of two dozen odd characters: a petty thief who specializes in stealing handbags from mourners in funeral parlors; a frustrated salesman for a manufacturer of caskets for pets; a 281- pound- 11 ounce palm-reader; a dying Jacques Casanova; Valentino as taxi dancer; a hit man who writes poetry; American novelist Henry James befuddled in a brothel; Mozart’s librettist teaching the Masked Lady of Venice to read; a maxed-out credit card addict; a young novelist forced to write resumes; the author himself recalling his boyhood, killing eels and throwing up on his first date’s shoes.