Bang Crunch

A support group for people who suspect their benign nature has caused benign tumours to grow inside them; a girl with Fred Hoyle syndrome whose age expands and contracts like the universe; a recently widowed woman who talks to her husband's ashes - entombed in a hollowed-out curling stone; a store detective whose valiant act to save a pair of pink calfskin gloves is entwined with the unfortunate results of an unsuccessful space mission; and a teenage boy who is forced to confront his feelings for his best friend when he sees a day-glo guinea-pig in an exhibition.
Humour and tenderness intertwine with loneliness and hopefulness in this remarkable collection of stories. Neil Smith's tales of misfits, dreamers and survivors are finely tuned and breathtakingly original.