'One of the most memorable opening lines in fiction is Ford Maddox Ford’s ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’ The Good Soldier is subtitled ‘A Tale of Passion’ – ‘tale’ implying a discursive telling and an unreliable narrator.But a new, tiny Australian book of short, amusing, even rollickingly funny stories told by a reliable though idiosyncratic narrator, tells a far sadder story.' (Introduction)