The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, Denis Johnson (USA): Jonathan Cape, 2018.

This is quite a good short story collection by the author of the fantastic Tree of Smoke. The solitary characters, in spite of often being amongst others, find themselves reaching for the unattainable, the mysterious in their lives. Most stories also deal with the race to death or against death. Johnson sums up his characters in one of the stories as “all on their way from rust to dust” and each story is an enjoyable, yet melancholy, read along that way.