The Isle Of Youth

'Uniformly excellent - emotionally complex, very raw - but always with a mixture of pathos and humour that made me think of Lorrie Moore.' - Dave Eggers

The Isle of Youth journeys through lives mired in secrecy and deception. From a newlywed marooned on honeymoon in Patagonia; to an abandoned tourist in Paris; to a woman who must travel to Antarctica to unpick the secrets of her brother's death, the characters in these mesmerizing stories are complicated, vulnerable and ruthless, each afflicted by desires with they try to satiate despite never knowing what they truly are. The stories in this collection are by turns magical and unexpected - with a healthy dose of brutality to keep them anchored in reality. Laura Van den Berg tinges her landscapes with a sense of the surreal, inviting readers to recognise - as her characters do - the surprising ways in which the familiar can suddenly reveal its darker contours.