From the hairdressing salon where an old man measures out his life in haircuts, to the concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign against those who cough in concerts;

from the woman reading elaborate recipes to her sick husband as a substitute for sex, to the woman incarcerated in an old people's home beginning a correspondence with an author that enriches both their lives - all Barnes' characters, in their different ways, square up to death and rage against the dying light.