Let the old dead make room for the young dead Faber stories

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman, now a widow, who escaped him fifteen years earlier. Neither of them doubts that the day will end in disgust, but for one intimate moment each finds a way to overcome mortality. Written in 1969, before Milan Kundera was known to English-speaking readers, this story renders male and female characters painful equals, and prompted Philip Roth to admire its 'detached Chekhovian tenderness'. Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work. A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman who escaped him 15 years earlier. trapped between her dead husband and a son who rejects everything that is youthful in her, she has allowed herself to age almost beyond recognition.The man's assessment of her appearance is brutal.