Boyle the master of edgy short fiction, introduces us to people who seem reasonable, like people you know, but who might at any moment turn desperate. We are mostly in the modern America we recognise — the malls, the burger bars, the airports. People are empty and self-centred. A young couple go on a camping holiday and run out of contraceptives. They really don’t want a child. Then things get as nasty as they could possibly get. Some guys in Alaska advertise for wives. But things go badly wrong in one guy’s mind. A woman gets on a plane. It’s burning. A recovering drug addict, out of rehab, gets a gun.
