The Josephs and other stories

A quiet disturbance lies at the heart of these stories in Polly Tuckett's debut collection. In one, a house restorer is seduced by a Catholic priest while the world around him sinks into a glorious pageant of decline and decay, in another, a weekend dad – part everyday superhero, part desperate soul – takes his daughter on an extended trip to France and writes a postcard home, and in the final story a cold and passionless hotelier comes to terms with her brother's suicide. "They kept him in a silver drawer, like lockers at the gym. They pulled him out and she identified him. That had been that. She couldn't cry, not then and not since. She was a monster, voilà tout."