Hanif Kureishi — Midnight All Day

Faber & Faber 1999 Paperback, 217pp. "An astonishing, darkly comic collection of new stories, in which Kureishi confirms his reputation as a chronicler of the loveless, the lost and the dispossessed. The characters are familiar in the cultural landscape of the nineties: frustrated and intoxicated, melancholic and sensitive, yet capable of great cruelty, and if necessary, willing to break the constraints of an old life to make way for the new. The final story, "The Penis", is an unsubtle reworking of Gogol's "The Nose". It is as if, after all the analysis, Kureishi is despairing of ever reaching a better understanding of love: all that's left is one man and his dick, in uneasy alliance.", (ISBN: 9780571194568). Very Good.