Fidelity: Stories

Michael Redhill conjures up many unexpected twists in 10 richly textured stories that range from the darkness of family silences to the hilarity of people caught in their own snares. The vulnerabilities of Redhill's characters are our own: a business-trip affair leaves a man humbled in ways he cannot anticipate; a young lover discovers she does not understand what connects people to each other; a traveling salesman, in trying to remain friends with his ex-wife, keeps breaking her heart; and a teenager's shocking sexuality inflicts wounds on her family. FIDELITY probes the nature of temptation and desire, the ambivalence at the heart of our most intimate trusts, and the paradox of betrayal, which is that we cannot deceive others unless we have first deceived ourselves. With his unflinching attention to emotional detail, Redhill proves once again to be "a writer of considerable humanity and insight." (A. L. Kennedy)