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Eley Williams returns with a subversive and essential collection of short stories exploring the nature of relationships both intimate and transient – from the easy gamesmanship of contagious yawns to the horror of a smile fixed for just a second too long. Whether jostling for attention or ducking to evade it, her characters seek connections not only with each other but also to versions of themselves.

In the final year of the 19th century, Peter Winceworth has reached the letter S, toiling away for the much-anticipated and multi-volume Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Overwhelmed at his desk and increasingly uneasy that his colleagues are attempting to corral language and regiment facts, Winceworth feels compelled to assert some sense of individual purpose and exercise artistic freedom, so he begins inserting unauthorised, fictitious entries into the dictionary.

This debut collection from Eley Williams centres upon the difficulties of communication and the way in which one's thoughts - absurd, encompassing, oblique - may never be fully communicable and yet can overwhelm. Attrib. and other stories celebrates the trickiness of language just as it confronts its limits. Correspondingly, the stories are littered with the physical ephemera of language: dictionaries, dog-eared pages, bookmarks and old coffee stains on older books. This centres on the weird, tender intricacies of the everyday where characters vie to 'own' their words, tell tall tales and attempt to define their worlds. 

London, New Year's Eve. Snow falls on a Georgian mansion, vibrating with the festivities of an 18th-century themed masquerade ball within. Middle-aged divorcee Anna stands alone, mourning her youth - until the clock chimes midnight and a mysterious masked figure kisses her on the mouth. Thus begins a heady dance of seduction charged by other clandestine romances swirling around them, whipping the ball into an erotic frenzy of operatic proportions - until the night climaxes, revealing unease beneath the glitter....