(For Mary Beckett is an extraordinary miniaturist of ordinary lives, lives of quiet despair sometimes relieved by quixotic gestures of defiance. In the main her subjects are women who are victims of the emotional poverty of their menfolk. The stories are short and simply told, the incidents often such as to make us flinch. But somehow Ms. Beckett manages to create a strange poetry out of the poverty and ugliness of these lives. BRIAN MOORE Eleven finely-crafted stories of depth and compassion which chronicle unfulfilled lives, and the longings and tensions of ordinary people in Northern Ireland. The title story in the collection has been described as one of the most powerful and moving tales to come out of that troubled region in recent times.Cover illustration from the painting Mary Street by Colin Middleton)