Rachel Seiffert, author of The Dark Room, powerfully evokes our need for human connection in this brilliant and haunting group of stories. From the title piece, in which a young biologist conceals his discoveries at a polluted river from a local woman, to the family aided by an enemy in 'The Crossing', to the old man weighing his regrets in 'Francis John Jones, 1924 -' Seiffert's acclaimed, refined prose movingly captures the lives of her characters in their most essential, secret moments.

Rachel Seiffert’s first novel, The Dark Room, won a Betty Trask Award and the Los Angeles Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a feature film called Lore. Seiffert has also received a David T. K. Wong award from PEN International for her work.