Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZEA Granta Best Young British Novelist'A thrilling love for the stuff of language … Magical' JON McGREGOR‘Poignant and playful’DAILY MAIL ‘A writer with few real rivals’IRISH TIMES'A visionary writer' JAN CARSONThe stunning new collection of stories from the award-winning author of The Liar’s Dictionary and Attrib. and Other Stories.Granta Best Young British novelist and acclaimed author of Attrib. and other stories, Eley Williams returns with a thrilling collection of short stories exploring the nature of relationships both intimate and transient – from the easy gamesmanship of contagious yawns to the horror of a smile fixed for just a second too long.A courtroom sketch artist delights in committing portraits of their lover to paper but their need to capture likenesses forever is revealed to have darker, more complex intentions. A child’s schoolyard crush on a saint marks a confrontation with the reality of a teenage body in flux. Elsewhere, an editor of canned laughter loses their confidence and seeks divine intervention, and an essayist annotates their thoughts on Keats by way of internet-gleaned sex tips.Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good hums with fossicking language and ingenious experiments in form and considers notions of playfulness, authenticity and care as it holds relationships to account: their sweet misunderstandings, soured reflections, queer wish fulfilments and shared, held breaths.‘Undeniably a skilful book’TELEGRAPH‘Stories that work from the inside out… glancing,intriguing’GUARDIAN'Erudite and audacious' KEIRAN GODDARD‘Frequently brilliant and deeply pleasurable’ CAOILINN HUGHES‘I don’t know anyone else who can write like this … What a joy!' BEN PESTER‘A joy for the head and the heart' RUBY COWLING