The title story describes the experiences of twin sisters who volunteer to work behind the front lines in France in the last year of the Great War. Their account of their lives, stationed close enough to the front line to hear the sound of the guns, is intercut with memories of their childhood, and recollections of them by people who encountered them. The sisters' bond to each other is so intense and excluding that they experience the rest of the world as though in a dream. But as the end of the war approaches, what had seemed indissoluble suffers a fracture which is to have tragic consequences. Though the pieces in the collection range widely in setting and time, many of them are also haunted by memories of war and loss which give the title story its remarkable depth.
- ISBN13 9781862076129
- Publish Date 1 September 2003 (first published 15 August 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 24 June 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Granta Books
- Format Paperback
- Pages 224
- Language English