A heartbroken man deals with his wife’s Alzheimer’s as best he can. The Jesus of O’Connell Street reflects on his situation, which isn’t half bad. A too-young girl witnesses her father’s shocking infidelity. A quiet murder on a riverbank...

Imperfect lovers and unlikely friends thwart and bolster each other as they act out their dramas on the beaches of Brazil, in the bedrooms of Dublin, and in the wilds of North America. With prose both lyrical and profound, the award-winning Nuala O’Connor writes of maternal love and cross-generational friendship but here, also, are stories of ageing, suicide, and the buoyancy of new love.

In these urgent, humane stories of ill-advised couplings, loneliness and burgeoning hope, we find O’Connor’s trademark humour and sensuality, and the quest for longed-for truths. A truly stunning collection by one of Ireland’s finest writers.