★ This book grapples with profound questions of life — aging, memory, and the choices of the heart. Spanning decades of joy, loss, and betrayal, its moving stories follow characters who uncover family secrets, are haunted by past events, reminisce about first loves, and, in the case of a man with Alzheimer's, relive bygone days — laying bare both the imperfection of human nature and the precious bonds of feeling.

From first love to a final reckoning, this deeply moving collection of short stories by master storyteller Dermot Bolger captures the heartbreak and hope that define our lives.

Life moves ever forward, yet its meaning often reveals itself only when we look back. In this luminous story collection, Dermot Bolger captures those unexpected moments when past loves and choices return with startling clarity. The stories explore aging, memory, and the lingering imprint of first encounters — how joy, loss, and betrayal echo across decades.

A man seeks to understand his father by searching for a half-sister he has never met. A woman is haunted by the death of a boy fifty years before. A lighthouse keeper recalls his first love. A public figure, as he slips into dementia, relives a fateful night. From childhood holidays shadowed by tragedy to chance reunions that rewrite old life paths, Bolger's characters struggle in what Yeats called the "rag-and-bone shop of the heart," revealing the fragile yet beautiful connections between people.

Dermot Bolger

One of Ireland's most celebrated cross-genre writers. His fifteen novels include The Homecoming, The Family on Paradise Pier, New Town Soul, Tanglewood, The Lonely Sea and the Sky, and most recently The Hide. He is also an accomplished playwright and poet; his recent play The Last Order at the Pier premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 2019 to great acclaim, playing to sold-out houses.