"In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women's lives are etched by deprivation--material, emotional, sexual--but also splashed by beauty, sometimes even joy, as they search for the good in the cards they've been dealt. A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a derelict housing estate. An expectant mother's worst fears about her husband's entanglement with a teenage girl are confirmed. A sister is tormented by visions of the man her brother murdered during the Troubles. A woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage. Plumbing the depths of intimacy, violence, and redemption, these stories are "dazzling, heartbreaking... keen to share the lessons of a lifetime" (Guardian)"-- Provided by publisher.

First published in hardcover in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2021.

The end of the world is a cul de sac --In silhouette -- Hunter-gatherers -- Wolf Point -- Belladonna -- Imbolc -- Beyond Carthage -- What the birds heard -- Gibraltar -- Powder -- Hands -- Once upon a pair of wheels -- Brittle things -- Sparing the heather -- Garland Sunday.