The twenty-nine stories in this volume include all nine from RETURNING; four uncollected stories that have previously appeared in the NEW YORKER and the author's own selections from THE LOVE OBJECT, A SCANDALOUS WOMAN and MRS REINHARDT. Love and loss, the villages and countryside of western Ireland, sexual intimacy and social alienation - everything that makes Edna O'Brien such a distinctive voice in contemporary fiction is contained in these stories.