Meetings, partings, loves and losses in rural France are dissected with compassion.

The late wedding guest isn't your cousin but a drunken chancer. The driver who gives you a lift isn't going anywhere but off the road. Snow settles on your car in the middle of summer and the glitter found between the pages of a borrowed novel takes you into another world. Pagano's stories weave together the mad, the mysterious and the dispossessed in rural France with honesty and humour. This is a superb cumulative collection from a unique French voice.

Translated by: Sophie Lewis, Jennifer Higgins