This book is the second short novel collection by Ian McEwan, following ""The Original Love, the Last Ceremony"". As an important work that made the writer became famous over night, this book includes 7 short novels which are characterized as smart, incisive and gloomy. They reveal the loneliness of those who are marginalized and abandoned by the world, bewilderment of the abnormal and the revenge to the world from those who have psychological distortions. The stories are unbelievable and the characters are brave, drawing the audience to unveil the truth which they refuse to accept.