A History of the Beanbag is a short story collection with a difference – a scenic tour of the surprises, secrets and fears beneath the cracked veneer of domesticity and suburban complacency. Like the beanbag of the title, the stories are an invitation to settle yourself in for a reading experience by turns vivid, haunting, bizarre and strangely confronting. With photographic precision, author Susan Midalia captures the fleeting beauty, light and darkness to be found in the ephemera of everyday life. From the silences between people and the ordinariness of places, objects and events, she conjures narrative jewels of intelligence and grace.