Peter Carey is justly renowned for his novels, which have included the Booker Prize-winning titles Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. He is also a dazzling writer of short stories and this volume collects together all the stories from The Fat Man in History and War Crimes as well as three other stories not previously published in book form.

The stories, persuasive and precisely crafted, reveal Carey to be a moralist with a sense of humour, a surrealist interested in naturalism and an urban poet delighting in paradox.

Contents:
- "Do You Love Me?"
- The Last Days of a Famous Mime
- Kristu-Du
- Crabs
- Life & Death in the South Side Pavilion
- Room No. 5 (Escribo)
- Happy Story
- A Million Dollars’ Worth of Amphetamines
- Peeling
- A Windmill in the West
- Concerning the Greek Tyrant
- Withdrawal
- Report on the Shadow Industry
- Joe
- The Puzzling Nature of Blue
- Conversations with Unicorns
- American Dreams
- The Fat Man in History
- The Uses of Williamson Wood
- Exotic Pleasures
- A Schoolboy Prank
- The Journey of a Lifetime
- The Chance
- Fragrance of Roses
- He Found Her in Late Summer
- War Crimes
- A Letter to Our Son