A reader can only conclude that the author was very fond of dogs. As in the lives of so many people, the dogs in the lives of the characters carry a deep and uncomplicated revelation of love. The action of the penultimate story, The Last One Standing, concerns the death of the dog. The place is somewhere in the Australian bush – “the tang of eucalypt”, “the shriek of a cockatoo loud in the emptiness” – where Ailsa and the dog Edna are the “last ones standing” in what appears to be the end of the world.

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Into the forlorn and threatening emptiness comes a lone child called Mary, witness to the death of the dog. She brings with her a little food and a clear sliver of wisdom: “You can’t close their eyes when they die,” she says. Then she digs the grave for the dog, “like someone who has done this before”. So, after all, Ailsa is not, as she had thought, the last one standing, but she must look death in the eye, eventually giving way to Mary. A biblical wistfulness broods over the narrative.

The collection is concerned with facing reality, with looking death in the eye. As grim as this sounds, the stories are composed with a lyrical honesty and an unforgettable strength. Georgia Blain’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2014. The stories were composed as the writer looked death in the eye, and that gaze turns, now gently, now abruptly as the collection progresses.

Mothers live and mothers die in several of the stories, and yet no twists of fate here can equal the tragic time frame of the deaths of the real mother and daughter. These will forever be embedded in the collection, highlighted by the foreword. This is a powerful and vivid tapestry of life and love and the brutal quirks of human destiny.

Carmel Bird’s most recent collection of stories, Love Letter to Lola, is published by Spineless Wonders.

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