The Grandmothers' - Two women, close friends, fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, promising a respectable old age.

'Victoria and the Staveneys' - A poor black girl has a baby with the son of a liberal middle-class family and finds that her little girl is slowly being absorbed into the world of white privilege and becoming estranged from her.

'The Reason for It' - Certain to appeal to fans of Shikasta and Memoirs of a Survivor, it describes the birth, flourishing, and decline of a culture long, long ago, but with many modern echoes.

'A Love Child' - A soldier in World War II, during the dangerous voyage to India around the Cape, falls in love on shore leave and remains convinced that a love child resulted from the wartime romance.