Book details

Book description

This collection of nine stories heralds the arrival of a new name in Irish fiction. In the title story, a young man travels to America, posing as a Nationalist hero and carrying a suitcase full of meat. In the blackly humorous world that these stories inhabit, fact and imagination are often fused. But Collins' richly surreal style is tempered by images of real people - the widow struggling for survival, the abandoned child, the petty philosopher - which is what makes this such a bewilderingly good first collection. Michael Collins was born in 1964 in Limerick, Ireland. He is the author of seven novels, and two collections of short stories. His work has garnered numerous awards, including a PUSHCART AWARD for BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, the KERRY INGREDIENTS IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR and he has been shortlisted for the BOOKER PRIZE and IMPAC PRIZE. Collins is also an extreme athlete and has won the Last Marathon in the Antarctic and set a record time in winning both the Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race and the Everest Challenge Marathon.