In these 14 magnificent new stories from a New Zealand master, Vincent O'Sullivan exhibits a shrewd understanding that pierces to the heart of what it means to be human. O'Sullivan can mock, satirize, and laugh, but he also finds dignity in unexpected places. He is interested in the art of living and in the borderland where truth and lies meet, both in life and in fiction itself.

Peter Simpson in reviewing Owen Marshall's stories in the NEW ZEALAND LISTENER wrote: 'Marshall is held in uncommon affection by New Zealand readers - generally we admire and respect rather than love our writers.' This love is perhaps evoked not just by the superb quality of Marshall's writing but because his stories so precisely capture his fellow New Zealanders and their country. From the provinces to the cities, the remote landscapes to journeying overseas, Marshall's stories show a deep understanding of who and where we are. Sometimes he skewers us with sharp and sly comedy, in other stories there's an elegiac sadness or a grim reality, but always an insightful exploration of human emotions. From the substantial body of work created over the last thirty years, Vincent O'Sullivan has selected sixty stories that give a wide representation of Marshall's range. He once wrote that short stories should aspire to a combination of 'intransigence and poetry', both of which are...

f we don't have the past in mind, it is merely history. If we do, it is still part of the present.Esther's grandparents first meet at a church dance in London in 1947. Stephen, a shy young Kiwi, has left to practise pharmacy on the other side of the world. Eva has grown up English, with no memory of the Jewish family who sent their little girl to safety. When the couple emigrate, the peace they seek in New Zealand cannot overcome the past they have left behind.Following the lives of Eva, her daughter Lisa and her granddaughter Esther, All This by Chance is a moving multigenerational family saga about the legacy of the Holocaust and the burden of secrets never shared, by one of New Zealand's finest writers.