Trapped in a generation gap

A typically exhausting satirical portrait of the warped relationship between two doctors in a psychiatric unit forms the centrepiece of Will Self's new collection of stories.

Madness, squalor and deprivation have always been key obsessions of Self's tongue-twister fiction, but he deploys these interests to far more moving and unexpected effect in the short stories that accompany the title novella.

161 is almost worth the price alone - an unexpectedly considered depiction of the fear-fuelled, ultimately humane relationship between an old man and a young boy trapped in the same high rise flat.