''Everyone who met him commented on the arresting power of Lawrence''s bright and sharp blue eyes, and the beard he later grew would be as red as a fox''s brush, but it was not his appearance that Ford was describing. It was his menace'' Frances Wilson, from her Introduction to The Man Who Loves Islands------------------------------------------------The Man Who Loved Islands presents Lawrence''s skilled, intimate and lively portraits of humanity. In the title story a man buys a ninety-nine year lease on an island and finds himself cast off in its timeless world; in ''The Last Laugh'' a couple are confronted with uncanny spectral visions, and an eerie faceless laugh; in ''The Fox'' two women maintaining a farm feel the dark shadows of war, and a cunning creature threatens to destroy their livelihood. The stories in this collection are about what the characters know and do not know - about themselves, one another, and the circumambient universe.