In this dazzling collection, Susan Irvine takes the reader into the creative mind. From Concept I, in which an artist presents her son as a work of art for the Turner Prize, to a Hoxton novelist who outsources the production of ''his'' prose to a fabulator, to a stylist whose attempt to subvert fashion''s shallowness backfires, Irvine''s characters find themselves caught between real life and the desire to create.

Moving through the worlds of art, academia, fashion and fiction, these stories challenge received ideas, cast a wry look at those who take themselves too seriously and explore the betrayals art can entail.