Stylistically varied and enlivened by a wry, dark humour, this collection shows Paddy O'Reilly living up to the promise shown in her debut novel, The Factory. With subtlety and assurance, O'Reilly creates narrative voices and situations spanning a broad range of experience - an alien visitor who communicates in the language of romance, a woman waiting for her death, a case of confused identity, and the sour taste of relationships lost or abandoned. O'Reilly's characters are at once defiant and accepting, curious and bewildered. From Japan to suburban Australia, and onto a place where larger, odder things are possible, The End of the World plays with our perceptions of reality.