Jean McNeil's first novel, Hunting Down Home, was widely praised for its 'knife-edged lyricism' and exquisite language. With this collection of stories, she returns to form with thirteen startling tales of longing and arbitrary lives. In 'Once Seen', a young woman in London constructs her own yearnings through ads in the Once Seen columns. In 'Beach Boy', Ignacio struggles to recall an earlier childhood, and a mother in the northern hemisphere who wants him back. A once successful writer seeks to revitalise his career through tracing the journeys and illicit loves of his famous travel writer friend in 'Cachoeira'. Lives intertwine briefly and uncoil suddenly in these human encounters - two girls in a burning landscape, a journalist caught in a Central American coup, a father and a daughter watching eels thrashing in a weir on a moonlit night. Set in Canada, Britain, France and Central America, each story is a whole world in itself, perfectly created in precise, sensuous language.