"What if you were middle-aged and were offered the chance to trade in your sagging flesh for a much younger and more pleasing model? This is the situation in which the main character of The Body finds himself. Taking the plunge, he embarks on an odyssey of hedonism, but soon regrets what he has left behind, as the responsibilities he thought he had sloughed off now begin to come home to him. Sinister forces are pursuing him, wanting to take possession of his 'body', leaving him in a no man's land, uncertain which way to turn." "In The Body, Kureishi plays with the idea of personal identity and the extent to which it is rooted in our physical being. This volume also contains a selection of stories imbued with the pain - as well as the joy - of relations between parents and their sons, and the anxieties of adolescence."--Jacket.