Furnace

An outstanding collection of contemporary short stories from a unique and virtuoso new voice, combining the fearlessness of Raymond Carver and subtlety of William Trevor with the unflinching vision of Paul Bowles In evading an ingratiating unofficial guide, a hapless backpacker seals his fate. A woman undertakes a pilgrimage to where her boyfriend died with another girl. A young man abroad resists returning home for crucial medical treatment. A summer worker is drawn into a menage a trois with a colleague and his boss. From the scorched hillsides of Morocco and heat of a Californian summer to the ferocity of the Spanish afternoon and discomfort of a Scottish heatwave, Wayne Price's characters sweat under the glare of both the sun and their author's forensic gaze.