Granta 82

Second Hand

Excellent Condition

Life's Like That

Like what, exactly? Like always ready to surprise you on the stairs; like wishing you had only known; like wanting it to go on for rather longer. This issue of Granta contains lessons drawn from the muddle of experience. With:

• Lynn Barber on the conman who seduced her, and then her parents
• Kathryn Chetkovich on living with envy, bred by a partner who is more successful than she is
  
• Simon Gray on smoking, absent friends, getting old, smoking, and why Gary Cooper walked the way he did
  
• Graham Robb on how we tried to spot homosexuality, in ourselves and others.

• Nell Freudenberger: the tutor's story
• J. Robert Lennon: look what the cat brought home (sex)
  
• Jayne Anne Phillips: the Termite's birthday
  
• and Paul Murray

Plus: 'The Steam People', a picture essay by Robin Grierson on the glorious machines of old England, and their lovers.