The accidentals

Deft and disquieting, oscillating between the real and the fantastical, The Accidentals is the brilliant new short story collection from International Booker-shortlisted duo Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey. When an albatross strays too far from its home, or loses its bearings, it becomes an ´accidental´, an unmoored wanderer. The protagonists of these eight stories each find the ordinary courses of their lives disrupted by an unexpected event and are pushed into unfamiliar terrain: a girl encounters her uncle in hospital, who was cast out of the family for reasons unknown; a menacing force hovers over a fracturing family on a rural holiday; a couple and their children inhabit a stifling world where it is better to be asleep than awake; a man´s desire for a solution to his marital dissatisfaction has unforeseen consequences.