An exciting first collection of stories by the author of Deep Line, West Country and S'neymous that mixes crisp social realism with long fanciful rambles and terse tales full of poetic symbolism:

Listen. Hear that tahonk tahonk tahonk out there in the dusk. That sound’s Flash Harry’s 10-14 Easthope. Timing’s out. That’s how Flash Harry he run the Merry Maid. Real bad retard. Real haywire, like that hippy draft dodger, he got everything wired together. He probably about the worst fisherman outa Squinteye Bay.

Roberts’ comic stories bear comparison with those of Hodgins and W.P. Kinsella. But he also shows himself a master of varying styles throughout this highly impressive debut volume, offering memorable naturalistic tales of anguish and terse evocations of poetic symbolism.