‘Everyone who met him commented on the arresting power of Lawrence’s bright and sharp blue eyes, and the beard he later grew would be as red as a fox’s brush, but it was not his appearance that Ford was describing. It was his menace’

Frances Wilson, from her Introduction to The Man Who Loves Islands

The Man Who Loved Islands presents Lawrence’s skilled, intimate and lively portraits of humanity. In the title story a man buys a ninety-nine year lease on an island and finds himself cast off in its timeless world; in ‘The Last Laugh’ a couple are confronted with uncanny spectral visions, and an eerie faceless laugh; in ‘The Fox’ two women maintaining a farm feel the dark shadows of war, and a cunning creature threatens to destroy their livelihood. The stories in this collection are about what the characters know and do not know - about themselves, one another, and the circumambient universe.