From the image of a small boy entranced by his mother's GI Escort, yet still hoping for the return of a father 'missing in action', to the portrait of an adult writer trying to piece together a defining image of his late father, these outstanding stories conjure up with sharp intensity the memories & events that make a man. These powerfully vivid stories by a grate writer range over more than a century of Australian life, from green tropical lushness to 'blacksoil country', from scrub & outback to city streets-evoking dark shadows beneath a bright sun, & lives shaped by the ghosts of history & the rhythms of unruly nature.