This is a début collection of nine short stories that explores two of the most powerful forces that imprint our lives. Schumacher paints portraits of everyday people as they struggle to understand themselves, the lives they have chosen, those they love and those who love them back. Schumacher employs simplicity of structure and a resilient, clear style allowing the subtext of human relationships to rise to the surface in these humorous and poignant stories. The protagonist of The Vast and Greatly Huge realises why he has a desire for practical jokes, while teenage kids in This Guy at the Laundromat pull a light-hearted revenge prank on a grown-up foe and catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the laughter. In Driving Home a couple struggles to find a place for the memory of their dead child, while the title story, Habits and Love dissects a traditional marriage, revealing the tension between comfort and longing strung across fifty years of marriage. Reminiscent of Richard Ford's fiction, this collection gently teases apart the games of human nature, and shows us that meaning often settles in the silences between words and actions.