Gibson’s fragmentary style favours standalone single lines or short sentences to exemplify episodic thinking and the discontinuities of broken narrative. He engages cultures in scraps and shards in this savvy and unique collection.

Where does it take place, Stone Grown Cold?

Let yourself think it’s a town you know well. Some bits are real and help like the sun on your back. Other bits have been gathered from gossip, screens and scumbags. There’s a good dose of sex in it and knucklehead glamour. It’s such a town. For good and for bad. With dazzle all over it. Dumb-arse to match. More gorgeous than reasonable. With everything you want. And who gives a fuck? Not prepared to play or say nice. Not much shame about the wrong things. Except on the quiet.

Most citizens are nine-to-fivers. They’re always bumping into folks who are not:

sham company promoters; hollow share hawkers; men loitering in yards; mendacious women importuning on telephones; purveyors of poorly provenanced smallgoods; covert-camera seducers and follow-up extortionists; hotel ‘barbers’; boarding-school snow-droppers; hospital potion filchers; theatre impresarios and fanciful futures conjurers.

Best accept it’s a town knows you well.

• Ross Gibson