Pulse points -- Aokigahara -- We got used to here fast -- Turncoat -- Dogs -- Convalescence -- Vaseline -- Peaks -- Eternal father -- Alpine road -- Vox clamantis -- Hungry for God -- Pressure okay -- Coarsegold.

The characters in Jennifer Down's Pulse Points live in small dusty towns, glittering exotic cities and slow droll suburbs; they are mourners, survivors and perpetrators. In the award-winning Aokigahara, a young woman travels to the sea of trees in Japan to say goodbye. In Coarsegold, a woman conducts an illicit affair while her recovering girlfriend works the overnight motel shift in the middle of nowhere. In Dogs, Foggo runs an unruly gang of bored, cruel boys with a scent for fresh meat. In Pressure Okay a middle-aged man goes to the theatre, gets a massage, remembers his departed wife, navigates the long game of grief with his adult daughter.

Winner 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction.