This new collection brings together a selection of Val Mulkerns' short fiction from three collections, Antiquities (AndrE Deutsch, 1978), An Idle Woman, (Poolbeg Press, 1980) and A Friend of Don Juan (John Murray, 1988). The stories take us from the cell of a rebel prisoner in 1916 through hard times in Dublin of the 1930s, the changing world of Ireland in the 60s and 70s and finally the eponymous 'Memory and Desire, ' a quintessential tale of the 80s.

Irish author Colm TOibIn described the title story as "one of the finest short stories that has been published in Ireland for many...