From the image of a small boy entranced by his mother''s GI Escort, yet still hoping for the return of a father ''missing in action'', to the portrait of an adult writer trying to piece together a defining image of his late father, these outstanding stories conjure up with sharp intensity the memories and events that make a man.

These powerfully vivid stories range over more than a century of Australian life, from green tropical lushness to ''blacksoil country'', from scrub and outback to city streets - evoking dark shadows beneath a bright sun, and lives shaped by the ghosts of history and the rhythms of unruly nature.