Flotsam & Jetsam Pa

Considered to be one of the best Irish writers of the twentieth century, Aidan Higgins has earned a reputation throughout Europe as an unusual and astringent prose stylist. This omnibus of selected short fiction is the perfect introduction to the talents of this Irish successor to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett (although Higgins's work is perhaps more reminiscent of his Welsh contemporary Dylan Thomas), and displays Higgins's warmth of language and character. From a melancholy tale of suicide in "North Salt Holdings" to a colorful depiction of J. J. Catchpole's escapades in "Catchpole, " Higgins builds his characters into touching failures who both attract and repulse the reader.

Aidan Higgins is the author of more than a dozen books, including Langrishe, Go Down, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His novel Balcony of Europe was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize