Eleven stories to which Patrick White brings his immense understanding of the urges which lie just beneath the facade of ordinary human relationships, especially those between men and women. A girl beset by her mother’s influence, who marries her father’s friend… A young man strangely moved into marriage with a girl like the mother who never understood him… A pretty market researcher who learns the ultimate details of love with a difference… The collector of bird-calls who unwittingly records the call of a very human nature.