In his highest selling short story collection to date, Tim Winton presents seventeen overlapping stories of second thoughts and mid-life regret set in the brooding small-town world of coastal Western Australia. Here are turnings of all kinds - changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours - where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they’ve made for themselves. Beautifully crafted, and as tender as they are confronting, these elegaic stories examine the darkness and frailty of ordinary people and celebrate the moments when the light shines through.