Set in Cleveland, Ohio, from its earliest beginnings as a forested frontier to the urban blight of modern times, Mistakes by the Lake is a collection of ten thematically-linked stories spanning the many faces of the city's history: - a motorman navigates his 1920's back-and-forth trolley until he snaps; - a stockyards knocker encounters the Virgin Mary during the 1954 World Series; - a wannabe wrestles his unruly mind along the flammable 1960's Cuyahoga River; - in a reinvention of Henry IV, a young man must either stick with his bumbling criminal crew or uncover legit ways to support his mother and transgender Gramps.