Life-Like

Emotionally compelling and formally innovative, "Life-Like" is Toby Litt s most ambitious collection of short stories so far bringing to a climax themes begun in "Adventures in Capitalism," "Exhibitionism" and "I play the drums in a band called ""okay ." "Life-Like" is a book about our globalizing and atomizing world with stories set in India, Sweden, Australia and Iran. It is a book about how we meet and fail to meet, and what connects us either way. It is a book about waste and communication, and communication through waste. It includes John & John, the overall winner of the Manchester Fiction Prize. The 26 "Life-Like "stories begin with Paddy and Agatha, an English couple last seen in Toby Litt s "Ghost Story. "Following the stillbirth of their second child, their marriage has gently begun to collapse. Paddy and Agatha both meet someone else, and are or are not unfaithful. Paddy meets Kavita; Agatha meets John. This is the first round. In the next round, each of these four engages with a different new person and so on, through a doubling and redoubling of intimately interconnected stories. Imagine it as a tennis tournament, in reverse. Imagine it as our world."