This series of short stories leaves you caught between the loneliness life can be and the moments of joy that define the space between. The stories focus on turning points in people’s lives, moments when things change fundamentally for the people involved. It describes how connected we are, how we might live our lives in other people’s, how decisions we make cause others to experience different lives. How we are all connected and yet single, separate and not really of any importance. How we are part of humanity, like fish in a shoal.
Faulks describes the particular lives of particular people with ease and an eye for the details that tell the story. We are seeing our lives in their experience. The sadness with which the singer leaves the stage, or the wounded officer dreams of facing the bowler at the crease, helps us feel the connection with their lives as they live out the consequences of their actions. Somehow we recognise the shame of the father in a Victorian workhouse as he fails to acknowledge his son across the courtyard. We are humanity. We die. We are connected.