Mothers and Sons is a sensitive meditation on the dramas surrounding this most elemental of relationships. Psychologically intricate and emotionally incisive, each story focuses on a moment in which an unspoken balance shifts; in which a mother or son do battle, or experience a sudden crisis, thus leaving their conception of who they are subtly or seriously altered.

This is an acute, masterful and moving collection that confirms Colm Tóibìn as a great prose stylist of our time.