The first law of sadness

"Connected by more than their exquisite prose, Nick Mulgrew's new stories delve into a world of killer eagles, tattoo removal parlours, hardcore punk guitarists-cum-auditors, turtle sanctuaries, plane crashes, amateur pornographers and biltong-makers - a world concurrently too strange and too familiar for comfort. A collection of startling imagination and sympathy - set primarily in South Africa's least fashionable cities and suburbs - these stories maintain a precarious balance between rich comedy and despair throughout their explorations of grief, spectacle, sex, nostalgia, and the lives of animals, both human and not"--