A dark, dazzling, surprisingly funny new collection of stories (Masterly Adam Mars Jones, The Observer; A virtuoso performance Jane Shilling, The Sunday Telegraph) about single women and wives in various phases of midlifeanxious mothers, besotted mothers, beset mothersin a (futile) search for security and consolation.Helen Simpsons stories are short but by no means small. One story takes the Iraq war as its subject; another describes a smokers reprieve from death by lung cancer; in another, a simple tale of home maintenancea woman in a conversation with the carpenter replacing her door after a break-inbecomes a deftly sketched study of grief. In still another, Simpson manages the seemingly impossibleproducing laughter at terminal illness and untimely death (this might be the first story in which the amputation of a limb provides a happy ending). And finally, the story entitled Constitutionala pun on one of the words meanings: a walk taken for the benefit of ones healthdeals with memory, family, Alzheimers, oak trees, pregnancy for the over-forties, stolen photographs, and crossword puzzles.Helen Simpsons stories move and disturb us as they light up the human gift for making the best of itwhatever it is.From the Trade Paperback edition.