In ten powerful stories, Salter portrays men and women in their most intimate moments. A book dealer faces the truth about his life as it is and never will be again when he is visited unexpectedly by his brash former girlfriend. A lonely married woman, after a disturbing encounter with a drunken poet at a dinner party, finds herself irresistibly drawn to his animal surrogate, a huge tawny-eyed dog. A lover of poetry must come to terms with his wife's request to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. And in the title story, already hailed as 'a masterpiece, clearly and without question' a translator, tormented by an agonizing sense of inevitability, assists in his wife's suicide even as he performs a last betrayal.
A haunting symphony of desire, memory and loss from a writer whose assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most compelling and important literary voices at work today.