Book excerpt: In this short story collection, mothers tattoo their children and abduct them; they act as surrogates and they use charms to cure childhood illness. The story Letters' sees an Irish mother cling to love of her son, though he abandoned her in New York. In Queen of Tattoo,' Lydia, the tattooed lady from the Groucho Marx song, tries to understand why her son is a bad man. Set in Ireland and America, as well as Paris, Rome, and Mexico, these stories map the lives of parents and the boundaries they cross. Ni Chonchuir's sinewy prose dazzles as she exposes the follies of motherhood as well as its triumphs.