"Let the coffee shop serve bad coffee. Let it have only yesterday's news and the local papers (let small crimes occur, and let occasional larger crimes, on the outskirts of town beyond the ring road, be personally motivated, down to nothing more than bad marriages, bad upbringings). Let me sit in the coffee shop and, while drinking bad coffee, hear the rumour that someone famous was to come to town but that the visit was cancelled. Let the woman behind the counter shake her head, her towelled hand continuing to spiral in the persistently streaked glass."

Joanna Walsh's debut collection of short stories, Fractals, are a carefully arranged set of sharp observations of quotidian situations and relationships. With delicacy and intimacy, they charm and entertain, and draw their readers further away into their daydreams, obsessions and adventures.

Praise for Fractals: