Collected here for the first time are stories spanning five decades of writing by the "short story master." (Harold Bloom) As John Banville writes in his introduction to THE LOVE OBJECT, Edna O'Brien "is, simply, one of the finest writers of our time." Illustrating a career's worth of shimmering, potent prose from a writer of great courage, vision, and heart, the thirty-one stories collected in this volume provide, among other things, a cumulative portrait of Ireland, seen from within and without. Coming of age, the impact of class, and familial and romantic love are the prevalent motifs in these magnificent tales, along with the instinct toward escape and subsequent nostalgia for home. Some of the stories are linked and some carry O'Brien's distinct sense of the comical. "When O'Brien ranges farther into the lives of women and men, married and single, beyond the borders of Ireland, she describes longing and desire and the intricacies of love and adultery as keenly and memorably as any modern writer you'll read, (NPR) "and with THE LOVE OBJECT her "mastery reveals itself in any number of ways." ( New Yorker )