These are short stories about people who harbour relics from their past: a postcard from Vienna, the cigarette burns that scar a boy’s chest, a stolen USB pen, blue concentration camp numbers tattooed on a forearm, a man’s sense of his own body as his HIV overtakes him. Alice Zorn’s remarkable debut collection displays these talismans of personal history and transforms them into extraordinary stories about relationships between partners, family, friends, and strangers.