Datsunland

A long-deserted drive-in, waiting for a rerun of the one story that might give it life; a child who discovers his identity in a photograph hidden in his parents' room ... Stephen Orr's stories are happy to let you in, but not out. In "Datsunland", his characters are outsiders peering into worlds they don't recognise, or understand: an Indian doctor arriving in the outback, discovering an uncomfortable truth about the Australian dream; a family trying to have their son's name removed from a Great War cowards' list; a confused teenager with a gun making an ad for an evangelical ministry. Each story is set in a place where, as Borges described, "heaven and hell seem out of proportion". There is no easy escape from the world's most desperate car yard, or the school with a secret that permeates all but one of the fourteen stories in "Datsunland". Here is a glimpse of inner lives, love, the astonishment of being ourselves.