An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. In this first collection of stories by the award-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon demonstrates that he is a master of the short form. "He writes with the craft of Julian Barnes or, even, Truman Capote". The Times.