The thaw -- Solo, a cappella -- The heart of Denis Noble -- Sylvia wears pink in the underworld -- There are precious things -- Oscillate wildly -- Dreaming Diana: twelve frames -- In praise of radical fish -- Imagining Chekhov. Woman with little pug ; Chekhov's telescope ; The death of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov -- How to make a citizen's arrest -- We are Methodists -- All the beloved ghosts.

"In 1920s Nova Scotia, as winter begins to thaw, a woman emerges from mourning and wears a new coat to a dance that will change everything. A teenager searches for his lover on a charged summer evening in 2011, as around him London erupts in anger. A cardiac specialist lingers on the cusp of consciousness as he awaits a new heart--and is transported to an attic room half a century ago. In an ancient Yorkshire churchyard, the author visits Sylvia Plath's grave and makes an unexpected connection across time. On a trip to Brighton, reluctant jihadists face the ultimate spiritual test. And at Charleston, Angelica Garnett, child of the Bloomsbury Group, is overcome by the past, all the beloved ghosts that spring to life before her eyes. Precise, playful and evocative, these exquisitely crafted stories explore memory, the media and mortality, unfolding at the line between reality and fiction. Written with vigorous intelligence and delicate insight, this collection captures the surprising joys, small tragedies and profound truths of existence."--From publisher.