Gods and Angels — David Park

A seventeen-year-old boy visits his estranged mother on Boxing Day in a grey seaside town; a university lecturer falls in with a group of older men who inhabit a very different world while trying to learn how to swim; a detective breaks into his former home to spy on his estranged family; a couple reflect on twenty-five years of marriage under the Northern Lights; and an old man volunteering in a charity shop forms a tender bond with a young single mother.

Bringing together deeply affecting stories exploring masculinity, loneliness, isolation, and longing, Gods and Angels is a masterful collection from one of Ireland's finest writers.