Somerville wears his heart on his sleeve for most of this book. This honesty, free of masculine posturing or bluster, is coupled with unexpected flourishes of literary skill and technique that reveal the full breadth of his talent. Somerville deftly injects his monochromatic landscapes with sudden flashes of colour that seem all the more vibrant in comparison. In ‘Earthquake’, a hypochondriac father shuffles home every evening, ‘accidentally spilling tissues from his jacket like he was afraid he’d lose his way back to work’. Chute, in ‘Parachute’, has a ‘flat face that resembled a piece of wood worn smooth by water’. These literary flashes remind us that Somerville is very capable of writing complex, descriptive prose. That he chooses not to employ such devices more often is a stylistic choice, not because of any lack of ability.

What links each of these stories is that every character is drowning somehow in a world they don’t understand and that has been created with their own unwitting complicity. Each is a visitor in her own home, a stranger in her own life; and all of them wish for a sense of belonging. Reminiscent of the works of Raymond Carver and Philip Roth (I particularly enjoyed his homage to Roth’s Zuckerman in the form of his alter-ego, Leonard Beckman), Somerville’s début short story collection is a study of alienation, acute anxiety, and loneliness. It is to be hoped that Chris Somerville’s first novel is not far off.