Author(s): Mandy Sayer

Essays | Australian

'Or at least there is a desire to become a smaller part of something larger in life, something that will take charge of you as though you were a child.' Richard Ford, WILDLIFE, from the epigraph to FIFTEEN KINDS OF DESIRE A young child is preyed upon by a molester - and turns the tables in a terrifying way; a young man adopts a disguise and finds love for the first time; a boy tracks down his father's mistress and is seduced by her; a young artist who is wooed long-distance by a passionate, urbane admirer discovers she is just another conquest to him and exacts a terrible revenge; a woman loses all memory; a man falls for a woman's corny superstitions and ends up slave to them; a couple shares an epiphany about the emptiness of their lives; the famous subject of a painting tells her life story; a thrill-kill couple take advantage of a naive country boy and discover too late he's more trouble than they'll ever get into; a woman paints a picture of her husband's lover; a man runs out on his wedding day; a woman loses her husband to his best friend; a prostitute decides to kill a rival but falls for him instead; a young writer remembers growing up in Kings Cross during its glory days...Vogel-award-winning author Mandy Sayer has crafted an impeccable collection of stories with a twist: each of the seemingly disparate stories is linked to the others in some way, so that, by the end of the book, the separate strands of story are woven together by their links to each other to create a vivid, teeming whole. Assured, intriguing, each as intricate and involving as a complete novel, these stories of FIFTEEN KINDS OF DESIRE will thrill any reader.