In true McInerney style, this new collection of stories examines post 9/11 America in all its dark and morally complex glory.His characters include a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest of all offices, a couple whose sexual experiments cross every line imaginable, a young socialite called home to nurse her mother and an older one scheming for her next husband.From the streets of downtown New York during the 2003 anti-war march and the lavish hotel rooms of the wealthy social elite, to a husband and wife who share a marital bed with a pot-bellied pig, the people in these stories search for meaning while struggling against each other, colliding as the old world around them fractures and dissolves into a modern era full of new uncertainties, where ghosts of loss hang in the air.McInerney's writing has crackling humour and a feverish, clear-sighted brilliance that perfectly underpins the lives of people living in modern America. These stories are deftly constructed, subtle, insightful and heartbreaking.Steeped in history but yet alive in the present- this new collection is a companion to the sweet madness of life