The finest short story collection yet from a contemporary master of the form.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e A new book of stories from Bernard MacLaverty is a cause for celebration, butu003cbu003eMatters of Life and Deathu003c/bu003eis without question the finest collection yet from a contemporary master of the form.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e Beginning with the sudden, nauseating terror of a family caught up in an explosion of shocking sectarian violence and ending with the white-out of an Iowa blizzard and a different kind of fear: the fear of displacement, erasure, of losing your way and yourself very far from home,u003cbu003eMatters of Life and Deathu003c/bu003eis a book about bonds and connections, made and broken, secret and known. In the extraordinary long story, Up the Coast, a landscape painter discovers a place that makes her feel whole, finally, only to have that communion cruelly shattered by an arbitrary act of aggression an act that will resonate through her work and her life from that moment on.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e Vivid, beautifully controlled and written with effortless skill and empathy, these stories are object lessons in the art of short fiction: the authors perfect eye and ear attending to every detail, every nuance of idiom and character, to remake the world for us, here on the page.