'Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast' Sunday Times

Melding his native Irish sensibilities to those of his adopted west-coast Scotland, these tales attend to life's big events: love and loss, separation and violence, death and betrayal. But the stories teem with smaller significant moments too - private epiphanies, chilling exchanges, intimate encounters. Each of these extraordinary stories - with their wry, self-deprecating humour, their elegance and subtle wisdom - gets to the very heart of life.

'Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast' The Sunday Times

About the Author
Bernard MacLaverty lives in Glasgow. He has written five previous collections of stories and five novels, including Grace Notes, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Midwinter Break, the Bord Gais Energy Irish Novel of the Year. He has written versions of his fiction for other media - radio and television plays, screenplays and libretti.

Reviews
Not since J.D. Salinger's For Esme With Love and Squalor have I enjoyed so much a collection of stories. I mean pleasure - real pleasure. -- Paul Durcan * The Cork Examiner *
MacLaverty is one of the best practitioners of the genre we have. * New Statesman *
His prose is invisible, free of tricks, as though it was your own thoughts. * Observer *
Beautifully constructed, minutely observed, filled with the poetry of longing, told with an economy and simplicity which makes their small tragedies even more powerful and moving... MacLaverty has created an imagined Ulster which can stand side by side with Joyce's Dublin. Long may he continue. * Guardian *
MacLaverty has a knack for endowing the workaday with a little poetry. * Independent *
MacLaverty's jaunty, light prose just skips over it all: here a turn of phrase, there a modest observation that lays a whole scene open. The effect is, as one of the characters says, "beyond rubies''. * Daily Telegraph *
MacLaverty is an exhilarating, tender, humorous writer... who can set a scene and create a character with Chekhovian delicacy and economy. * Sunday Telegraph *
Expert, elegant, mature and passionate. * Scotsman *
Compelling tales of family dramas in troubled times. * Herald *
Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast. Funny...and forlorn, they are triumphs of exactness - Joyce and Chekhov come to mind - in which time, place and personality are caught with unshowy authority and not a word seems wasted. -- Peter Kemp * The Sunday Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099561583
Author Bernard MacLaverty
Format Paperback
Page Count 640
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 463g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 130mm * 31mm