SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE''One of the best collections you''ll read this year'' Sunday Times''Wild, witty stories . . . Exhilarating'' ObserverIn this rapturous story collection we encounter a ragbag of west of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories affirm Kevin Barry as one of the world''s most accomplished and gifted writers, and show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist.