Book description
Any book of stories from Bernard MacLaverty is a cause for
celebration, but Matters of Life and Death is more than that,
as it is - without question - one of the finest contemporary examples
of the short story as a genre.
Beginning with the sudden, nauseating terror of a family caught up
in an explosion of shocking sectarian violence and ending with the
white-out of an Iowa blizzard and a different kind of fear, Matters
of Life and Death is a book about bonds and connections, made
and broken, secret and known. Vivid, beautifully controlled and
written with effortless skill and empathy, these stories are object
lessons in the art of short fiction.
Bernard MacLaverty lives in Glasgow. He has written several
collections of stories and novels, including
Grace Notes
which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Saltire Scottish
Book of the Year Award. He has written versions of his fiction for other
media - radio plays, television plays, screenplays - and wrote and
directed the short film
Bye Child
which won a BAFTA award.
