Young lovers and older ones, married couples and divorced ones, bachelors and widows, passions that are admitted and concealed, but also an abstruse relationship of son and his dying father – simply, love in all its guises – such is the main theme of the latest book by the most popular contemporary Czech writer Michal Viewegh.

In all of the sixteen short stories, the writer utilizes his style and composition, and imaginatively adds to the thematic diversity with a wide array of narrative tools. Viewegh observes the happy as well as the adverse side of love, not only with understanding, but also with his traditional ironic coolheadedness. Occasional sadness or melancholy imbued in these short proses is almost invariably “duly” accompanied by verbal and situational humour…