Monsieur Shoushana's lemon trees - Patricia Duncker

From the author of Hallucinating Foucault comes this stunning collection of stories united by the themes of pleasure, passion, jealousy and revenge. Patricia Duncker creates worlds where the apparently innocent are not harmless and no one ever turns out to be exactly what they seem. In The Arrival Matters - the extraordinary novella which crowns the collection - the characters play out a sinister and atmospheric end game of a mysterious and supernatural history of love. Elsewhere, a jealous husband pursues his adulterous wife through the streets of Paris, a forbidden book subverts an authoritarian state, a TV crew get considerably more than they bargained for, and a lesbian community in uproar is described with wry humour and tenderness.

'Witty, wholly contemporary, the narrative moves easily over a wide range of material. Unmissable' Mail on Sunday

'Every bit as good as her debut novel, Hallucinating Foucault , which is saying a good deal . . . Penetrating and sparkling' Philip Hensher

'The fictional equivalent of a firework display, their [the stories'] effect is spectacular' Joan Smith, Independent on Sunday

'Confirms Duncker as a writer of skilful and alluring prose . . . Witty and diverting' Literary Review