Yumna Kassab’s debut collection of short stories is a startling and skilful cross section of the daily lives of Lebanese immigrants in the suburbs of Western Sydney. An impressive debut, Kassab picks at themes of family, bigotry, marriage, culture, adolescence and illness, with nuance and control. ‘The Wedding Day’ describes an arranged marriage from the alternating perspectives of the nervous bride and groom, circled by fussing relatives. In ‘The Sunday Lunch’, a mother, Um Mazen, watches the clock, waiting for her son to stop by with his children and wife – they visit less these days. A father rises early to work in his fruit shop, saddened by the realisation that his sons have no interest in inheriting the business, as he had done from his father, and his father before. A 16-year-old begins wearing a headscarf to school, to the pride of her mother and the disappointment of her swimming coach. A gentle husband gives his tired wife a bath.

There is a domestic melancholy to many of the stories, of dirty dishes and drawn curtains, empty shoeboxes and phone chargers. But there are shards of joy and affection, roast potatoes, lemonade and newborn babies. In a few poetic sentences, tidy dialogue and telling details, Kassab achieves an emotional intensity and insight that writers of full-length novels can only scratch at.

Reviewed by Emma Harvey