Whese are tales told in a variety of voices: street hustlers, priests, blues singers, holocaust survivors, cross-dressers, paramilitary snipers, even those we may euphemistically consider the ""ordinary"" - all of them authentic, and all would subscribe to the maxim that ""happiness is overrated."" The dialogue is true to speech as it is spoken, shot through with humor, piercing sadness and puzzling beauty. To quote the important American critic, M.L. Rosenthal, ""His is one of the few story collections I've seen that even begins to pick up from the method of Dubliners. Like Joyce, Callaghan gets so deeply and honestly into the local world that it is the international place we all inhabit.

Preface by: Margaret Atwood