Intimacy

'It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back.' Jay is leaving his partner and their two sons. As the long night before his departure unfolds he remembers the ups and downs of his relationship with Susan. In an unforgettable, and often pitiless, reflection of their time together he analyses the agonies and the joys of trying to make a life with another person. 'It is by far the most astute and painful dissection of male sexual restlessness that I've read . . . The dialogue is shattering and there's a blunt refusal to compromise or be fastidious . . . Telling the truth is always a precarious business, but Kureishi does it with seriousness, tenderness and upsetting aplomb.' Mail on Sunday