Often hilarious, often tragic, often poignant, always acutely observed and with an astonishing sense of character and skill at dialogue these stories show the skill of a superb writer. From the poignant snatched encounter of 'The Odour of Corruption' through the humour of 'Sisters' to the deeply moving symbolism of the 'The Lost Sheep' when the native returning from a long exile remembers his rescue of a sheep in childhood and comes to realise how that symbolises his life, the author's skill at evoking both people and place transcend the landscape in which the stories are set and turn them into universal human truths.
'I keep busy in that great city where I have made another home and another world for myself, and where amid the miracles of steel and glass and concrete, the never ceasing tumult, the roar and reverberation of traffic. I am far from the green place on the Galson moor called Bhresigro, and from Loch Breithebhat and Loch na Saorach. But sometimes in my mind's eye, I find myself back there, and I see my mother, the headscarf pushed back from her head, black haired, red cheeked, beautiful, sitting across from me on the heather.'
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