Reality, Reality

At the beating heart of Reality, Reality are moments of reaching out to family, friends and lovers. These are stories about food, sex and memories, about sharing them, or yearning to, or seeking solace in being alone.

A woman takes a week off work to cook her way into the imaginary TV finals of MasterChef. Another sits at the window of her care home, aware that the fullest life in the place is her own mind. We meet a woman who flees to give birth; another overcome by dreams of the child she never had; and one condemned to live for ever, to give birth, to lose and to sing for generations.

All have voices that will not let you go: that give flight to rich inner lives and provoke laughter and tears. As ever, in this newest and most luminous of collections, Jackie Kay finds dignity in solitude, humour in love, and something universal in longing.