The animal facts of human life—need, love, children, exhaustion, incapacity, and death—come alive in one farmer's long hot day.

Praise for Cynan Jones:

“[A] piercing novella . . . Like Cormac McCarthy, Jones can make the everyday sound fraught and biblical.”—Kirkus, starred review

“Jones’ prose clips along at an unnerving pace, barely giving you time to process the previous beautiful image, before knocking you dead with the next one.”—Green Apple Books, Our Favorite Books of 2015

“This book will collapse you into its single point of infinite heaviness, and you’ll love it.”—Elliott Bay Book Company

On a long, hot day, Gareth searches for a missing pregnant cow. A dog must be put down, there are ducks to go in the pond, there are children, and there is Kate, his wife, who may be an uncrossable distance from him. Jones's rural Wales is alive with the necessities of our own animal instincts and most human longing.

Cynan Jones was born near Aberaeron on the west coast of Wales in 1975. He is the author of five short novels,The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, Bird, Blood, Snow, The Dig and The Cove. His work has been translated into several languages, and short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta.