A collection of new stories from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders
and Waterland; 'a powerful statement about English ways of life and death' Indep
endent on Sunday Meet Dr Shah, who has never been to India, and Mrs Kaminski, on
her way to Poland via A&E. Meet Holly and Polly, who have come to their own Ang
lo-Irish understanding; Charlie and Don, who have seen the docks turn into Dockl
ands; Daisy Baker, terrified of Yorkshire; and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmo
or. Binding these stories together is Graham Swift's affectionate but unflinchin
g instinct for the story of us all: an evocation of that mysterious body that is
a nation, deepened by the palpable sense of our individual bodies finding or lo
sing their way in the nationless territory of birth, ageing, sex and death.
