The semi-lost people of the streets of Avicenna, people such as the Frozen-Yogurt Man, are likely to be familiar to people accustomed to city life, but they may be mysteries to others. Beagle has set "Julie's Unicorn" in the San Francisco Bay Area, which means that street people and other urban types are included. The question of how to help such lost people frequently arises in American political discussions, with few concrete results. The struggle has been between the American tradition of individualism, which suggests that they should be left alone, and the desire to remove people such as those Julie encounters from the streets, either to care for them in a managed facility or just to be rid of them.

"Julie's Unicorn" offers no answers for the problem, instead using the Frozen-Yogurt Man as part of the mystery of the unicorn's yearnings.

Julie's life as...