These stories mix vividly imagined and varied worlds with resonant, repeated emotional themes: Clark's characters are all haunted by relationships, stuck wondering if this is/was the best they could have done and grieving for loss, even if just of something unattainable. But they do this in wildly different situations: a couple choose brain surgery to cope with the trauma of an unbearably hot and bereft 2040 Sydney, a civil servant works a call centre for relationship resentment claims, an elderly woman desperately and dysfunctionally tries to connect from a nursing home prison surrounded by deadly infection, a pregnant woman trades wildly with God. Others seem set in the world as we know it: a woman turns vegetarian to impress the man she is dating, another starts dressing in her dead spouse's clothes, and another plots to clone a dog she loves wildly.
In perhaps the most moving story, a woman overthinks how to deal with her partner's ex, only to discover the woman as a person and potential friend. Rarely have I read literature that deals so subtly with the dynamics of female relationships and their comfort and power.
Lest this sound too serious, the collection is wryly hilarious, and Clarke manages to entertain without ever losing the ethereal tone of the collection. And it is a collection - while the 17 stories are terribly varied, the themes echo throughout, and so do other elements: characters with variations on Elizabeth and a love of dogs. It feels as if this could be a multiverse collection of what could be the lives of someone in differing worlds.
All up, it made for a wonderful read. It isn't one to tear through - I ended up cutting it with other books to give the stories some time to settle, but it wasn't a one-story-at-a-time book either.