In this collection of varied and exquisite short stories, Linda Leatherbarrow brings together for the first time her prize-winning short prose with new and previously unpublished work. A wide-ranging, rich and surprising gallery of characters includes a nineteen-year-old girl leaving home, a talking gorilla in the swinging sixties, a shoe fetishist and a long-distance walker. The prose is lyrical, witty and uplifting, moving and always pertinent - proof that the short story is the perfect literary form for contemporary urban life. These stories display a seriously fresh original talent and are essential reading for short-story lovers everywhere.