In the introduction to this anthology co-editors and contributors Sarah Hall and Peter Hobbs declare: "How we come in, and how we go out, sex and death: these are the two governing drives, our two greatest themes. The humid embrace and the cold sweat." Eros and Thanatos intertwine in a variety of surprising positions in this collection, which features newly composed work by 20 authors from around the world. The final two stories are the standouts: Irish writer Kevin Barry's Toronto and the State of Grace and Scottish author Ali Smith's Metaphysical. Barry's is a darkly funny and totally bizarre account of a vaudevillian mother-son duo who burst into a sleepy pub in rural Ireland, disturbing the equilibrium of the barman's world in the process. Smith's is a fragmented tale which juxtaposes reflections by a man who escapes from the hospital to make cups of tea in strangers' homes, and a woman whose cat gifts her a dead bird full of maggots. Hall and Hobbs posit that "the short story form is the perfect vehicle for our ecstasies and agonies", and these sex and death stories offer a range of intimate experiences to titillate and disturb the reader.
