In The Devil's Larder, Jim Crace offers sixty-four short fictions about food, sex, desire and its death.Here are stories of almost Joycean beauty, such as the tale of the schoolgirls hunting for razor clams on the strand, or the picture of children searching for soup stones to take out the fishiness of fish but to preserve the flavour of the sea, or the mother and daughter who taste the food in each other's mouths to see if people really do taste things differently. At other times, a Mephistophelian hand is at work - in the fable about the woman who seasons her food with the remains of her cremated husband, only to hear a voice singing from her stomach (you can't swallow grief, she is advised); or in the gloss on the restaurant known as the Air & Light, the place to be in a small coastal town that serves as the backdrop for Crace's gastronomic flights of fancy, but where no food or beverage is actually served, although a 12 percent tax is imposed for just sitting there and being seen. Read Less