Melting Point fuses prose and poetry, realism and literary inventiveness, in dealing with the absurdity of humanity. Its fourteen stories embrace a dizzying variety of genres: hyperrealism, sci-fi, the Gothic and melodrama, all subtly re-invented.

The most striking thing about Magarian's collection is its range of interests, the multiplicity of the worlds evoked, and the extreme contrasts among its characters: a feted, reclusive writer; a seductive murderess with a fondness for Bourbon; a thief obsessed with a Toulouse-Lautrec print; a fruit and vegetable merchant who has a genius toddler; and a deep-sea diver who can only be free from clumsiness when she is submerged in water.

Stories and characters flow from these molten moments in a series of fictions that touch on ecstasy and excess.