The last bachelor - Jay McInerney

In true McInerney style, this new collection of stories examines post 9/11 America in all its dark and morally complex glory.

His characters include a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest of all offices, a couple whose sexual experiments cross every line imaginable, a young socialite called home to nurse her mother and an older one scheming for her next husband.

From the streets of downtown New York during the 2003 anti-war march and the lavish hotel rooms of the wealthy social elite, to a husband and wife who share a marital bed with a pot-bellied pig, the people in these stories search for meaning while struggling against each other, colliding as the old world around them fractures and dissolves into a modern era full of new uncertainties, where ghosts of loss hang in the air.

McInerney's writing has crackling humour and a feverish, clear-sighted brilliance that perfectly underpins the lives of people living in modern America. These stories are deftly constructed, subtle, insightful and heartbreaking. Steeped in history but yet alive in the present - this new collection is a companion to the sweet madness of life