Dark, unnerving, and wickedly funny, Patrick McGrath’s acclaimed short stories deal in the bizarre, the erotic, and the unexpected. A failed writer meets an ageing gin-queen who claims he was once visited by an angel; a little girl finds a delirious, dying explorer from the Congo at the bottom of her back garden; a nightclub is terrorized by a strange libidinous hand; and a young Victorian lady sails to India to find her fiancé Cecil horribly transformed...

Between 2011 and 2014, I wrote eight short stories. I had been writing stories since I was about six. Weird scenarios would enter my head and I would feel compelled to write about them. Blood in Water relates on Abby who makes an awful discovery about her family. Dead Letter Room samples the life of lonely Finch at his workplace. Outside enters the disturbed mind of an ex-convict and What Goes Around considers the makings of a bully. On the surface all appear to delve into diverse worlds and minds. But this isn’t quite so. They are all about alienation. My other stories are the same: alienation. It goes right back to my early children’s mysteries of the Seventies. How strange. I hadn’t noticed. The reason is that I would make my own personal discovery in 2016. I was fifty-one years old and living with my partner and two children. Until then, I was completely unaware of a vital truth about myself. This truth has leaked into my stories and creations without my realisation. This account is true. Relevant diary entries have been included as well as illustrations. Analyses and further dissections provides an insight into the force behind these stories, and ventures into the strange phenomena I have discovered. It’s like a ghost language.

A comprehensive bibliography of books and short fiction published in the English language.

Covers authors who are currently active or who died after December 31, 1959. Profiles novelists, poets, playwrights and other creative and nonfiction writers by providing criticism taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers and scholarly journals.

The term Niddah means separation. During her menstrual flow and for several days thereafter, a Jewish woman is considered Niddah -- separate from her husband and unable to practice the sacred rituals of Judaism. Purification in a miqveh (a ritual bath) following her period restores full status as a wife and member of the Jewish community. In the contemporary world, debates about Niddah focus less on the literal exclusion of menstruating women from the synagogue, instead emphasizing relations between husband and wife and the general role of Jewish women in Judaism. Although this has been the law since ancient times, the meaning and practice of Niddah has been widely contested. Women and Water explores how these purity rituals have affected Jewish women across time and place, and shows how their own interpretation of Niddah often conflicted with rabbinic views. These essays also speak to contemporary feminist issues such as shaping women's identity, power relations between women and men, and the role of women in the sacred.

Severed hands, dead monkeys, swarming insects, pickled body parts and menacing pygmies proliferate in this collection of short stories. They also feature ancient Southern plantations, isolated manor houses, places where ghosts like to lurk and places where spiritual and physical decay presides.

"New book on Philippine-Australian short stories. Topics on Australian identity and migration experiences have perhaps bored many of us in our classroom and dinner discussion, but when they are told in honest and lively ways, with characters from different voices and ages, and with genuine human emotion, reading can become engaging and enjoyable."--Provided by publisher.