nearly 5, no definitely 5 stars. I loved this book. Right up my street. I'd be proud to write such compelling, complex stories. Proper review will com...morenearly 5, no definitely 5 stars. I loved this book. Right up my street. I'd be proud to write such compelling, complex stories. Proper review will come, eventually (slowing down I'm afraid for work reasons..) So thanks Jacob for putting me onto this.(less)
Joel is my mate and in my group so I am inclined to give it five*. Also I read at the launch, as a kind of warm up act. It's a beautifully produced bo...moreJoel is my mate and in my group so I am inclined to give it five*. Also I read at the launch, as a kind of warm up act. It's a beautifully produced booklet of five crime stories, as black as they come, and written with Lane's usual tight, fierce style. I'll put a few quotes in below when I get home.
*Those of you who are old and British may remember the 60s panel show 'thank Your Lucky Stars' where the Brummie girl would say 'I'll give it foive' and became a minor celebrity for about a week and even had a single out with that title (great lyrics: Mantovani drives me barmy, Shirley Bassey much too classy etc). Can you imagine me saying it in that accent please?
Oh yes, if you're wondering why it is called 'Do Not Pass Go' Joel said it was because he wouldn't collect £200. (less)
a great bunch of stories to get your teeth stuck into, and most live up to the claim of 'unpredictable, unconventional' fiction, although the first on...morea great bunch of stories to get your teeth stuck into, and most live up to the claim of 'unpredictable, unconventional' fiction, although the first one 'Stuck' was quite conventional (and very good) - about a man having second thoughts on his stag night in Prague. This is one of several pieces featuring the British abroad, mostly on the end of bad stuff - a scam in Katowice; a gay man who finds his night cruising very dangerous in a homophobic Sultanate, but is unable to stop it - and all are shivery with fear or displacement, as well as sometimes amusing.
There is plenty of inventive stuff - in one story set in an office everybody has to carry a bucket of water in case there's a fire (the government have disbanded the fire service), and staff attend weekly repetitive fantasy workshops and if you're poor you can't enter high credit zones. Other stories are literary (in a good way), in 'Poets of the Radial City' there is a funny 'Notes on Contributors', here's one entry:Hereward Neubauer: 'Poetry is blood, incense and toil' states Neubauer. In addition to verse he has published a fantasy saga 'Dungor Lord of the Tidal Flats' and is working on a biography of the late Rudolph Lubbock'. My friend (and writer's group colleague) Charles Wilkinson's tightly written, Nabokovian story (first line: The deterioration in my eyesight has been most welcome.) has his academic protagonist tracking down information about obscure (& fictional) poet Keidrych Gomer-Rice. A third is set in a library: From the scuffed purple carpet to the dust on the picture rail, I knew the library from cover to cover. It’s a Victorian hardback with superficially modern binding.
The mag also champions the long short story and probably the stand out story is a forty pager called ‘The Swan King’ by Ashley Stokes (who also edits), loaded with menace and mystery as a voyeur across the road watches the hero with his new girlfriend from across the road (To the left of her ear the Swan King hung in his box of white dazzle). The girl becomes convinced that the man is holding a missing girl and convinces the boyfriend to investigate.
Altogether an interesting selection and I look forward to number 3.
enjoyable collection, with the stand out story being - again (he was in the first issue of the Fiction Desk Anthology) - Charles Lambert's (he's a GR...moreenjoyable collection, with the stand out story being - again (he was in the first issue of the Fiction Desk Anthology) - Charles Lambert's (he's a GR friend, so money in an envelope Charles)... more later.
Charles's story is set in the 1970s and is about a rich Italian girl sent to the UK to avoid being kidnapped by the Red Brigade (I remember all that). But - you knew there'd be a but - she gets involved with a punk rocker who has an ingenious scheme to raise money and cock-a-snoop at the establishment. An excellent piece. I also liked very much the strange 'Swimming with the Fishes' in which a family buy a toy diver for their fishtank who turns out to be real ('he comes with a choice of diving suits: squid ink black or starfish red'). Another story has a man reading his own obituary (there's a William Trvor story I remember with the same premise, but very differently handled) and reflecting on his past as one half of the once popular double act Jaggers & Crown. There's a funny but uncomfortable piece about an Irish one armed poet: like watching a slow motion crash in the end, and you want to look away but you can't, and three tales set in schools, but all very different. This is turning out to be a good series. (less)
actually I'm not sure whether this anthology will include any stories from writers in my group, but it is edited by group member Kavita Bhanot. It wil...moreactually I'm not sure whether this anthology will include any stories from writers in my group, but it is edited by group member Kavita Bhanot. It will be launched on Oct 7th at the Ikon Gallery,Birmingham, UK and I hope to be going along.
I did go along, a very good evening - two electrifying readings. Kavita does have a story in it, as well as editing.
This is an anthology of stories with writers at different stages of development, some like Bidisha well established, others just starting out. Inevitably then it is uneven and I had thought about giving it three stars, but this would be to ignore the handful of excellent stories in it, and the majority which are more than just good. Besides Kavita might not speak to me again. I think the critic in the Guardian is being a bit mean. Or a lot mean. He feels this challenge to established Asian writers (like himself) creates its own traps and expectations. Not having read enough British Asian fiction to be able to comment on this, I approached it instead as any other anthology and was (mostly) delighted by the stories here. I loved the cheekiness of Rajeev Balasubramanyam’s ‘Tablet of Bliss’ (which imagines David Beckham becoming a militant Islamist), and Rajorshi Chakraborti’s ‘All You Can Dream’ which features a giant brothel with all manner of things going on. Also slyly funny is ‘Asian of the Month’ (Gautam Malkani) which directly addresses the concerns of the editor by conjuring up a TV reality show with that title. The other stories I enjoyed most were Bobby Nayyar’s Phun, a poised and elegant story set in New York where the protagonist makes mistaken assumptions about the relationship between a woman he obsesses about and Phun, the man she is always with; Niven Govinden’s ‘Le Coiffeuse’ which features a woman who drives to remote villages ‘only accessible by ancient bridges’ to cut and collect the hair of the poverty stricken girls who queue for the meagre reward offered; Nikesh Shukla’s biting Iron Nose; Bidisha’s longish and beautiful school story ‘Dust’; Rohan Kar’s ‘Sepulchre’, another beautifully composed story set in Jerusalem, and Bhanot’s story ‘Gust of Life’ about an enigmatic young man who enters and changes the life of a woman who impulsively asks him in off the street.
Of course - as in most anthologies – there were one or two stories I didn’t connect with but taken all in all this was refreshing and provoking. Very glad I read it, and I’ll be looking out for some of the names above in future. (less)
my review's gone! I put one up yesterday, and now it's disappeared. I said this was a lively and dirty and druggy bunch of stories of Welsh youth, fea...moremy review's gone! I put one up yesterday, and now it's disappeared. I said this was a lively and dirty and druggy bunch of stories of Welsh youth, featuring alcoholic mothers and wayward daughters (eg one becomes a gun runner) mainly set in the Valleys but also stretching to New York (great description of a sheltered girl's experience of the streets of NY), Cornwall (or was it Devon?), London. I liked it a lot. I said something like that. (less)
another writer appearing at the Lancaster Literary festival Great Short Fiction day, and someone I'd been meaning to read since I saw Abailart's revie...moreanother writer appearing at the Lancaster Literary festival Great Short Fiction day, and someone I'd been meaning to read since I saw Abailart's review
I liked these stories a lot, nearly as good as Agnes Owen (there are many similarities besides the Scottishness). You're reading stories here so rich in dialect that when you type a sentence out you get those red wavy Microsoft lines under every other word, or thereabouts:
We’d go tae the baths every Saturday morning, Agnes and me. Ah’d watch fae the windae, alang the grey, gluthery street, till ah caught the first glimpse of her red raincoat and blue pixie hat turnin the corner, then ah’d grab ma cossie, wrap it up in the blue-grey towel, washed too many times, and heid for the door.
What a wonderful thing - ‘gluthery’: no such word but you know what it means from the context. The author uses language in a rich, uncompromising way that evokes strongly the community the stories spring from. They really sing with pace and understanding, deeply rooted in the area (Glasgow) and its various communities. The plots are usually simple, the first two are childhood pieces involving glitter pens (yon glittery stuff that comes in wee tubes), and I was worried that all the stories would be similar, and many are childhood/school stories (not all involving glitter pens), but they move on through middle age with themes of illness, divorce, affairs, to end up in old age with ‘Zimmerobics’ about someone in a nursing home who gets a new lease of energy when an exercise instructor enters her life. Again a simple but effective piece.
A couple of other stories are more complex but just as striking. Donovan also experiments in pieces like 'Dindy' which begins: Dindy dindy dindy says Tommam. Bingy bingy bingy.
Sprinkled throughout are wonderful sentences like They’re all the same, men, anyway, there’s not one of them’s worth the heat in his drawers.
I have to say that I spent a pleasant evening with Anne after the readings so I may be biased. (less)
yep another writer appearing at the Great Short Fiction day at Lancaster Literary Festival. Started reading it on the train this morning and it is the...moreyep another writer appearing at the Great Short Fiction day at Lancaster Literary Festival. Started reading it on the train this morning and it is the exact opposite of Anne Donovan's Heiroglyphics which was full of short, dialect-heavy (a couple of titles: Wanny the Lassies; A Chitterin Bite) and snappy stories, this one has much longer, formally written pieces.
..I liked a few stories a lot: the title story, 'Fat Girl' (which Simon read at the Litfest), and 'The Observatory by Daylight' a hilarious, biting story of a Public School principal's wheelchair bound son getting involved in the 'bad' pupil's scheme of stealing exam papers. Very very English,as all of them are, even the one set in America (two retirees on a trip across the States). I quite liked the last one too - The Last Word - which starts off with a writer's publisher saying he needed one more story to finish the collection. And he's got to do it by the end of the Bank Holiday (this is the Friday). So the story is about trying to write a story, and involves going off with his girlfriend to a place in the country he hates and they take a male Irish TV cook as company for her. Normally I'm not a fan of 'metafiction' but this had a few laughs at its own expense.
Some of the other stories I found overlong, and a bit portentous and over-described. Robson brings a novel like attention to scenes that require - for me - a lighter, or a briefer, touch. I found myself skimming through a couple of them (especially the one where two women meet again after 60 years, one now a nun), and that's not a good sign in short stories where every word should count.
...2012 - again had to add the cover. Why are they disappearing from GR?(less)
This book sweeps you away much like the main character, a woman working in a benefits office, is carried off into another state (or states) by her sex...moreThis book sweeps you away much like the main character, a woman working in a benefits office, is carried off into another state (or states) by her sexual contact and subsequent obsession with a claimant at the dole office. On first meeting they have sex in the car park, and from then on her ‘normal’ life falls to pieces as she pursues the purely sexual relationship with the ex-criminal (we’re not told what crime he has committed but he is violent to her, steals her car). We feel sometimes like her friend Alison who tries to make her ‘see sense’ – what the fuck are you doing, going back to him when he’s humiliated you, bruised and subjugated you to his will – and sometimes get caught up in her hallucinatory world where normality seems silly:
As I trailed up the stairs I could hear my mum asking where the kettle was. I wanted to rush back down and shout at them to leave my kettle alone. To get out of my house, and take their stupid string bags, fucking bifocals and dreary matching fleeces with them.
She’s gone beyond tea - she stops eating for a while - and work and politeness, she’s lost her sense of self, she’s someone different now:
I felt as if some wet substance filled my cavities. It could have been water, it might have been blood; some sort of disgusting broth anyway. I was surprised my colleagues couldn’t hear it lapping around as I stalked up and down the corridors. For all I knew I was leaving liquid splodges on the office floors.
As a reader the hook is so strong you want to just sit and read straight through and I would have but for things like work and family stuff getting in the way. Short chapters with ironic headings, true things about her: I talk to the animals (where she visits her gran in hospital, who threw her head back and started crowing like a cockerel. She had little claws that plucked the bedclothes), I get tied up once in a while, I eat colour coordinated snacks. There’s a lot of topical humour too: Why can’t I have a good old British sandwich? She asked. Why must it be ciabatta and wraps and stuff like that? Who is Panini anyway?
I suspect some will wince at the very strong nature of the sex, violence, drugs depicted here, but this is a ‘descent’ story of considerable power. Fucking brilliant. Surrender.
I should add that she is another writer who is appearing at the Great Short Fiction day @ Lancaster Litfest, although this is a novel (I'll get on to her stories after, as they've just arrived). I am so glad she is because I might not have picked up this book otherwise. (less)
read on the plane to Sardinia - good, maybe three stars a bit harsh... more later..
have decided that 3 stars is too harsh for this is a poetic, teasin...moreread on the plane to Sardinia - good, maybe three stars a bit harsh... more later..
have decided that 3 stars is too harsh for this is a poetic, teasing and sensuous book, getting down to the core of desire and appetite in people. It flits around in history, one story dropping through a hole in time with London becoming filled with horse shit and carriages after the modern character's night out in a theatre. There are stories about George Sand and Collette and fictional characters like Jane Eyre and Emma Bovary.
The quote on the back (that I half remember) - about two lovers writhing in an estuary at low tide, ‘imprinting our bodies into the mud’ while sailors on boats going by catcall - gives you a flavour of it. (again I have returned the book so can’t quote much – should have written down some of the thrilling sentences).
So why did I start by giving this three stars? Well maybe because what put me on to this was the brilliant story in ‘Best British Short Stories 2011’ – again a story about lovers, but with a shocking twist that made you read it over, immediately. The others in this collection are just as good, but maybe I felt they ploughed the same furrow, the sex and food one, and maybe because I thought some were over-poetic. I read most of them in a short space of time, crammed on an aeroplane. I will probably go back and re-read at a more leisurely pace and in a more comfortable setting which would allow more savouring of the delicious detail. I am recommending to notgettingenough simply for the food and sex, because I know those are two of her preoccupations. (less)
fucking brilliant, Kelman on top form. More later..
I knew I was going to enjoy this when I read the first sentence: When I presented myself at the Emer...morefucking brilliant, Kelman on top form. More later..
I knew I was going to enjoy this when I read the first sentence: When I presented myself at the Emergency section of the Social security Office I knew things could go wrong but I was not expecting a leg amputated. The protagonist then has the wrong leg of his trousers cut off and has to wear them back to front. That kind of hard Beckettian absurd humour is there throughout this book, in the ‘tramps’ who discuss the best way to start a fire, or the man who has to awkwardly carry a bike and open a gate at the same time. Kelman’s heroes are as usual Glaswegian working class men struggling with drink problems, the violence of others, bureaucracy or the burden of erotic desire. Very male – you hear in most stories that women are different, and many of the stories appear to be attempts to understand their (it is as if they are a different species) motivations: eg the naive student’s thoughts as he makes his way home to Glasgow on a coach from an English university where everybody – it becomes apparent – is rich (relatively), including his ‘girlfriend’ who may be using him as her ‘bit of rough’, and then there’s the man trying to persuade his ex to stop seeing a married man, and the husband who comes home early from his shift, and may have been sacked, but doesn't want to alarm his wife. Nearly all the pieces are ‘streams of consciousness’ mingled with dialogue and have no plot, the method is you sit inside the man’s head for a bit then it ends. Sounds uninviting maybe, and he won’t appeal to everyone, but the writing is marvellous: sweeping, accurate, albeit repetitive and sometimes - deliberately - awkward. I'd like to quote more but had to take my book back to the library.
There is a definite 80s/90s feel to the writing and concerns even though there is mention of mobile phones and social networking, another thing that may put people off. But along with the humour and political rant there is a great tenderness in these pieces, along with unending questions and philosophical debate, a search for understanding and a warmth that people don’t necessarily associate with Kelman (I think it has always been there). Above all it is funny, sweary, absurd, provoking. Lovely stuff. (less)
been away so am behind with reviews, will get to them soon I hope..
I’ve read Denis Johnson before (Angels) – in fact I thought I’d read this one – so...morebeen away so am behind with reviews, will get to them soon I hope..
I’ve read Denis Johnson before (Angels) – in fact I thought I’d read this one – so I knew what to expect, and he didn’t disappoint. The world – well a bit of north west USA - seen through the eyes of a drug-and-alcohol dependent. Set in bars and hospitals and stunning countryside and coastline it’s a strange, gory and beautiful place, full of bloody car crashes and violence and deadpan humour and visions. It's disjointed and jolting but also weirdly harmonious and accepting. It has the logic of the drugged and hallucinating and the prose prickles your skin and invigorates. There’s so many lovely moments (these at random):
She stood in the middle of them (fields) as on a high mountain, with her red hair pulled out sideways by the wind, around her the green and grey plains pressed down flat, and all the grasses of Iowa whistling one note.
The mild spring evening, after several frozen winter months, was like a foreigner breathing in our faces.
On the farther side of the field, just beyond the curtains of snow, the sky was torn away and the angels were descending out of a brilliant blue summer, their huge faces streaked with light and full of pity (less)
this just won the Edge Hill prize (UK prize for short story collections). I know his stories from magazines and anthologies over the years, and they a...morethis just won the Edge Hill prize (UK prize for short story collections). I know his stories from magazines and anthologies over the years, and they are good. It says above that the principal language is Latvian!
...did enjoy it, can see why it won.. more later
update March 2012, haven't really had time to do a detailed review but here's a few thoughts. will fill in quotes etc later: well observed stories of (usually) inadequate men, sometimes boys (and girls) up against the forces of nature (the snow one, the fox one) or of a society they don’t quite get the hang of (The Friday night piss-head one, the old actor one) or of bitter but unexplained anger (the railway waiting one). Mort is a poet and brings a poet’s eye to his descriptions (eg?) The feeling after you put the book down is of a whole strata of society not able to control their lives or what’s around them (the factory one where the saw kills a fellow worker), dislocated…(less)
good but slow, more later.. OK,catching up. Trying to.. this book is a wonderfully calibrated family saga, encompassing such delights as Uncle Ballroom...moregood but slow, more later.. OK,catching up. Trying to.. this book is a wonderfully calibrated family saga, encompassing such delights as Uncle Ballroom (he’s good at dancing), ghosts, gossips, postcolonial Malysia, servants badly treated, adultery, snobbery, race riots, and food - Chinese, Malaysian, Indian (I really wanted to tatse those curry puffs), and has a focus on bodily functions, shit, piss, snot drip from its pages.It's quite useful Appa (the house's patriarch) has no sense of smell or he might never have married Amma. They have three children, Aasha who converses with ghosts, the jokey brother (name?) and Uma, the scholar, who as a young girl entertained company by declaiming Tennyson and Shakespeare, [and] followed this with her fourteen times table, and rounded off her performance with an up-to-date listing of African capitals in alphabetical order.
People are portrayed in fully rounded terms, the servant Chellam, for example, although she is beaten by her father and all her money taken from her and is snubbed by the family, is no saint herself, given to pinching the thigh of her charge, the old woman of the house. She entertains the children with her film star posters and physical attributes like the white threads of grease that spiralled out of her pores like butter icing from a hundred tiny pastry bags when she squeezed the skin of her nose.
It's beautifully written with precise and lovely descriptions of butterflies, flowers, houses and skies. The relationships are complex and engaging, it's funny, and thought provoking. It interweaves history and poltics into the narrative but not with a heavy hand, the writing stays light and breezy even when dealing with, for example, the race divides between the Indians, the Malays and the Chinese.
So it sounds close to perfect and it is. But as I said sometimes it gets a bit slow. It goes back and forth in time, and often this gives a fresh angle on something we know about: usually this is good, a further revelation that might make us change our minds about a character or situation, but occasionally, just occasionally, I thought OK, can we move on now (eg when the matriarch dies) and instead found the narrative going backwards again. But don't let that put you off, this is a fab book.(less)
read two or three great reviews for this. The Guardian called it 'one of the finest collections of stories to have come out of south Asia in decades'....moreread two or three great reviews for this. The Guardian called it 'one of the finest collections of stories to have come out of south Asia in decades'..
These stories are set on the Afghan/Pakistan border 30 or 40 years ago, before the rise of the Taliban, indeed before the Soviet invasion, more concerned with the aftermath of the British empire (some place names have disconcertingly British names). It gives a great insight into the area - a place ravaged by sand storms (wind rages continuously during the four winter months, blowing clouds of alkali laden dust and sand so thick that men can barely breathe or open their eyes), hunger (and thirst) and hardship - and its tribal affiliations, where honour and tradition and tribal rites are of utmost importance. Hospitality is always offered to strangers and negotiation can be won by telling the best story/allegory. Women are sold in the market place and treated worse than bears: Shah Zarina has been sold by her father to a bear trainer and finds that the bear has the best food and accommodation. She could not understand why the bear had to have a room and they could not. Once she asked her husband. He looked at her coldly and said, ‘I can get another wife, but not another bear’.
The title character is the orphan of two fugitive lovers (like Romeo and Juliet breaking social barriers to be together) hunted down by their tribes and killed. He is brought up by various nomads and is thus unique and troubling to all because he belongs to no tribe. He appears in a few of the stories as a guide and an informer etc. (An informer is an accepted role in the region, and you can advertise youself as one).
The prose is not spectacular, but simple and effective. It doesn't say it's a translation so I assume not - the author was a member of the Civil service posted to the frontier, so probably wrote in English. An absorbing, eye opening read. (less)
got a good review at the weekend from various papers and I really liked his first novel 'God's Own Country'.
I am tempted to give it 5 stars because it...moregot a good review at the weekend from various papers and I really liked his first novel 'God's Own Country'.
I am tempted to give it 5 stars because it ended up a moving account of one man's descent into poverty and homelessness after the shock of his wife's death. He is an ex Clydebank shipbuilder, and feels guilty because he has caused her death through the asbestos he brought home on/in his clothes. Unable to cope with the grief anf guilt and too proud to go on the dole (on the broo) or to claim compensation he 'runs off' to London where he works in a hotel with immigrant workers. Losing that job he becomes homeless, drinking 'superlager' and eventually begging at atube station before getting a place in a hostel.
It has none of the exuberance, humour or punch of God's Own Country, instead it is a somber and detailed description of decline, a very different read. Although his book is partly set in Scotland and his protagonist Scottish I think with Raisin, McGregor, and Cartwright we are seeing a wave of English writers tackling 'working class' problems in the way that Scottish writers (Kelman, Welsh, Warner) have been doing for some time. Long may it continue. (less)
more poetry! Again there's a reason - a local writer, a local press. I did a reading with one of their authors recently and picked up a couple of thei...moremore poetry! Again there's a reason - a local writer, a local press. I did a reading with one of their authors recently and picked up a couple of their 'pamphlets'/'chapbooks', not sure what to call them.
Planet Shaped Horse is fucking nuts, as you might have guessed from the title. A sealed off world, complete with a map frontispiece, peopled by Miranda and Simon and 'I' and a hermit or hermits or are they part of a Time-Based Sculpture, a final year piece, living just 'past the fabricated hills (felt) and the acres of brambles/(wire wool and suspended craft knives).' ? It's full of lines like 'Today I hallucinated an angel who told me I wasn't hallucinating.' On the back of the title page where past books are usually listed it says 'Oooh Another Book' at the top and at the bottom 'You Must Be Very Proud'. If that doesn't sound your thing you probably won't like this. It ain't mine really but I found myself enjoying this, it's very funny, well I found it funny, this is an example of the humour (from a poem called 'Stupidest Words in Dumbest Order The'):
Butterflies are bits of something. The hermitologist is reading More magazine.
It's his day off, so instead of sitting on his mound of dirt, he sits just to the left of his mound of dirt.
I found myself smiling as I read this on the train in the morning on the way to work gliding past the University with its Italianite tower and extensive grounds where he is an academic. When I got to work I looked him up on the net and see he looks about 23 and isn't much older and his 'award winning poetry has appeared in numerous print and on line journals. He exists in a permanent state of award-winning; he is like a giant magnet for awards, or, if awards are moths, a giant light.'
couldn't resist this - it is packaged like a packet of fags (cigarettes, US people) and when you take the book out it has filter tips etc. Take that,...morecouldn't resist this - it is packaged like a packet of fags (cigarettes, US people) and when you take the book out it has filter tips etc. Take that, Kindle!
..Ok, a bit of a gimmick, but this bloke can write. All the stories feature smoking - the last one is about Raymond Carver's final cigarette. That's one of the weaker ones (I felt) but there are four or five very fine pieces here, I was taken with them. I started with the shortest 'What's in Swindon?' (that's already funny to English people as Swindon is known as a town of roundabouts and little else) and was struck by how clever he was to convey so much about an attempt to rekindle an old relationship in 4 or 5 pages. The next one I read was longer and better still - 'Things Seem So Far Away Here' - about a down-on-her-luck sister who visits her much richer brother hoping to find some work (nannying) with his family, and how she gradually realises she doesn't fit in: an excellent story. Others were just as good: 'Some Great Project' (again involving siblings) and 'The Best Place in Town' about a stag party in Las Vegas. Perhaps the most striking story is 'Real Life', about a female installation artist who makes art out of pornography mixed with news footage, hats on wires etc and hangs about with sado-masochists (in the club they visit a woman walked past with a man on a leash. He drank from a bowl of water on the floor... We watched Mary beat the hell out of some guy, then went back to the flat). Funny, smart stuff, on the ball but not slick because you see it all from the more 'ordinary' boyfriend's pov, while she's out exhibiting he's watching football (soccer) at the local pub, called 'The Faltering Fullback'. Two, maybe three of the stories didn't quite hit those heights, but overall I was impressed. (less)
I've put 'novel' and 'short stories' down as they are really connected stories (in the manner of Winesburg, Ohio)...
review later was a bit annoyed by i...moreI've put 'novel' and 'short stories' down as they are really connected stories (in the manner of Winesburg, Ohio)...
review later was a bit annoyed by it really, all the capitals, columns, silly titles (to my mind, here's one of the 'chapter' titles - THOUGH OCCASIONALLY GLARING OR VIOLENT , MODERN COLOR IS ON THE WHOLE EMINENTLY SOMBER. Is it though, as Catherine Tate's Lauren* would say?). And it purports to be a novel when in fact it is a collection of stories, albeit sometimes linked. And it doesn't vary enough in tone. However, I did really enjoy it all, once past those obstacles. In fact I read 'Fishboy' on a plane to Amsterdam and wanted the flight to go on longer so I could finish the story -in fact I just managed as it bumped down. (Strangely the same thing happened on the way back with a story in '10 Stories About Smoking'). Fucking great story. About a mad adolescent boy who obsesses about a girl and does all sorts of weird things. OK , nothing new, but the story bumped along like the plane and then soared, passages such as the following:
The door exploded. A white light filled the room, then a yellow light, then a red light, and a sonic boom, folowed by a series of high pitched screeching sounds. From the opening in the doorway, a long red flame burst in and split the room in half. A tall man walked in. Dressed in a black bodysuit and a gold fireman's mask. He held a shiny gold flamethrower. He walked round my apartment and, slowly, methodically, began to light everything on fire. He opened the refrigerator and stepped back. He pulled the trigger and with a roar the inside went up in flames. He walked into the bathroom, there was a whooshing sound, I saw a glow. Then he came back in, walked across the carpet, and stood in front of me. He spoke words, deep and thunderous but uintelligible behind the fireman's mask. Then he turned back to the rest of the apartment and fired again. The drapes went up and the walls and then the floor, and the fire raged to the ceiling.... I watched, petrified, as the man in black walked over to my fishtank and sprayed it with flame - the water boiled and my fish burst their seams. the water turned red.
The fish are a good touch, especially in context. The stories are all pretty good, most - all - downbeat, drugs, (I like downbeat, drugs) tight, and also funny as when a bloke rings a sex line but keeps changing his mind about what he wants -
He wanted to know if she liked to be with men and women at the same time. She loved it. She'd been with lots of women - she loved women and men - and she'd been waiting for - No, he didn't like that. OK, she'd #never# been with a woman but she'd always wanted to try. In fact, there was another woman with her right now... a young coed with long blonde hair, and they were both in their panties - ... She was with a young #brunette# coed and she was an #older# woman - a friend of his mother's from when he was a teenager - Rebecca White was her name.. her husband was obese and she didn't love her husband and what she'd always wanted was #him#.. No, what she #really# wanted was to be with a young coed and a teenage boy...
And so on. So thanks whichever goodreader recommended.
*Catherine Tate had a (British) TV comedy show which featured a schoolgirl who had phrases like 'Am I bovvered?'and 'Is it though?'..
part of my holiday reading - off to Amsterdam at the weekend for few days.. some very beautiful pieces in this book.. more later..
I started off admirin...morepart of my holiday reading - off to Amsterdam at the weekend for few days.. some very beautiful pieces in this book.. more later..
I started off admiring the writing but not getting much out of the stories I read, seemed not my thing. I usually start with the shortest piece and this was 'Leaf' about a man who emits sycamore pods from his mouth instead of laughing and later laurel leaves instead of words, and then one about a guy who brings the moon down for his daughter - whacked it into a web of branches, where it struggled, palpitating, then locked it under his arm and brought it home.
Two more stories drifted by, nicely, The Dust Volcano about digging a well in Africa with a twist ending, and Guava Heads about a girl's first dance. All good but not that engaging (to me). Then I read the title story and initially I couldn't get into it, a party that goes wrong, frozen lamb shanks instead of fresh, Richard and Dominic, the phrase 'old mucker', but then something clicked and I got it, went back and started again and felt out of this unpromising start a thing of beauty emerged. Two guests in the kitchen open a skylight: A column of snowflakes drifted down into the kitchen, switching about in the heat, the couple guzzle champagne like water quenching their casual thirst and then stood together under the snow, tipping their faces to it, pulling their shirts away from their bodies to let the flakes in to cool their skin.
Then came strong, elegant stories like Mango, Dog in The Yard, The Paperback Macbeth, Ultimate Satisfaction Everyday, all excellent, cleanly done and full of sharp observations. An example: in The Last of Her the rich, charming hosts turn out to be not quite so perfect as the grateful and exhausted guest assumed. This profound disappointment is captured well in other stories too, in Blizzards a three-week-married wife feels it catch her when she listens to her husband tell a tale in a way that exposes his cruelty and egocentricity.
So I had mixed fellings about this book. Overall I think I loved it more than not. Who could not love a book with opening lines like this: Wendy Norman was perfect. She had a kilt. She had Persil-white knee socks that her mother never turned inside out so she could get a couple of extra days wear from them. Her house had a storm porch. Her brother was Steven with a 'v'. (less)
Yay! It's here at last. In my hand. My story sits bang in the middle. Very proud to be chosen along with luminaries such as Hilary Mantel and Michele...moreYay! It's here at last. In my hand. My story sits bang in the middle. Very proud to be chosen along with luminaries such as Hilary Mantel and Michele Roberts. I've read most of it, albeit unproofed as I had a proof copy sent a couple of months ago. Just a couple of stories to go.
..well of course I've given it five stars but it's not only because my story is included. No, not at all, at all. (turning Irish for a minute). No it's because all the stories in here are good to great to fab. No filler at all. If you wanted to know about the current state of the British short story this would be a good place to start. I think it's very different from the 'Best Of..' story anthologies from the US I've read, but i realise I've only read about 5 or 6 of those, and most from the late 80s/90s era when Carveresque 'Dirty realism' was the prevailing mode. Mine are a bit like that, and there are other stories in here that are of the Carver/Ford/Wolff type (eg Burnside's 'Slut's Hair'), but there are many more of the quirky, supra-natural (supernatural is not quite the right term) type too.
There are several well known names (to me at least): David Rose’s intriguing Flora opens the collection (one of several here that need re-reading), followed by Hilary Mantel’s Winter Break, the first of two creepy and effective pieces that she contributes, later there’s Leone Ross’s fine ‘Love Silk Food’ which opens:
Mrs Neecy-Brown’s husband is falling in love. She can tell because the love is stuck to the walls of the house, making the wallpaper sticky, and it seeps into the calendar in her kitchen, so bad that she can’t see what the date is and the love keeps ruining the food… everything turns to mush ,
and there are excellent stories from Christopher Burns, Robert Edric and Dai Vaughan. John Burnside’s Slut’s Hair is a punch to the guts, about an abused wife:
She had to make out that she was pleased to see him, she had to make him think she’d waited up for him all this time, so she could make him a coffee or fetch him another drink, the moment he came in the door. Most of all, she had to pretend she didn’t know he was drunk, because that would mean she was judging him and he hated to be judged more than anything .
Sally Vickers' end story ('Epiphany') of a son meeting his estranged father on a beach is truly beautiful. Probably the story I enjoyed most of the ‘names I knew’ was Michele Roberts’ poetic 'Tristram and Isolde' which updates that story to a contemporary setting, but with such a shock in it that you need to re-read immediately.
Part of the forest transformed itself into a red stag.. on his head he bore his antlers like a tall crown, a candelabra of bone. All wreathed with streamers of green fern.
Of new names (to me – or writers I’ve heard of but hadn’t read) I found Bernie McGill’s No Angel a quiet and moving ghost story, Adam Marek’s Dinner of the Dead Alumni manic breathless fun, Alison Moore’s When the Door Closed it was Dark as claustrophobic as its title: as you read you can smell pig blood rising from it. All the stories here are well worth a read. Yes I would say that but give it a go and you'll see I'm not fibbing. (less)
I had some comments up for this one, but they've gone, so re-writing. When I say I've read, I only managed about 60 pages. It wasn...moreLent me by a friend.
I had some comments up for this one, but they've gone, so re-writing. When I say I've read, I only managed about 60 pages. It wasn't for me, despite some good writing. I may re-read when I'm in a more whimsical mood. Fat boy who works in a gym, loses his job, works in a chip shop, gets burnt, meets a strange child in hospital.. that's as far as I got. I kept thinking he's telling me too much, why am I being told this...
Having said that I passed it on to my eldest (21 year old) and she loves it, so maybe it's an age thing...
and I was just saying (on another review) how I don't abandon books, but 'Volt' came along, and that called to me and told me to stop everything and read it: two stories in, it's brilliant. Terrifying and riveting and bone melting. Should put this information on that book's review i spose..(less)
at first this seemed a probable three star book – the first couple (I don’t read in order) I read were OK, but not my kind of thing: ‘How to fall in L...moreat first this seemed a probable three star book – the first couple (I don’t read in order) I read were OK, but not my kind of thing: ‘How to fall in Love with an Air Hostess’ was particularly not my thing, being too arch for me and presented in the second person singular (I always thought stories using ‘you’ a bit presumptuous, unless done very very well, eg The Sound of My Voice; some of Lorrie Moore’s stuff). But then most of the stories after those two caught me in ways I didn’t expect – eg Rex, about a dog. I hate dogs, and stories about them, but this one was very funny and strange and like no dog I – or you, second person singular - have ever come across. Another one was about the anxieties of impending fatherhood (‘Nativity’) and again my heart sank, but it was a strong, wide ranging piece going back to the father-to-be’s own fairly traumatic childhood and his reaction to it. Charles Lambert’s story was a perfect little piece on friends visiting a family and their disappointment with them: I expected a villa overlooking the lake.. a lawn rolling down to the water’s edge, a boathouse maybe. But we park outside a four storey stuccoed residential block. The prose has an accomplished ease. (I do have to declare an interest here as Charles is a GR friend and I have met him once). Two beautifully realised but weird stories were ‘A Covering of Leaves’ about a Nissan left in a station car park after a train crash kills its owner that starts to move of its own volition, and ‘Celia and Harold’ in which a stranded passenger finds the village pub creepily filed with similar looking men. ‘Sometimes the Only Way Out is In’ has a ten year old (ish) running away from his mother who has died to find Wales, where his dad might be:He knew the city didn't go on forver, though. He knew that somewhere out there was a place where all around you, all you could see were fields, trees and hills. And he knew that place was called Wales. All he has is a photo. His adventures are both funny and dangerous (Oliver Twist like) and make you catch your breath a few times.
These ‘Fiction Desk’ anthologies look like a good series (four a year). A nice mix of new and established writers, and I’ll be glad if I can join them one day. (less)
I was just saying (on another review) how I don't abandon books, but 'Volt' came along, and that called to me and told me to stop everything and read...moreI was just saying (on another review) how I don't abandon books, but 'Volt' came along, and that called to me and told me to stop everything and read it: two stories in, it's brilliant. Terrifying and riveting and bone melting.
Later.. Yes the whole book was terrifying and riveting and bone melting. Heathcock is in the tradition of McCarthy and Carver and Steinbeck in the unflinching approach to his characters, here people of an imaginary town called Krafton (I hope it's imaginary cuz there's far too many murders/suicides/disasters for one place to sustain - flood and fire and death everywhere you look). He gets into their souls and makes you think and feel like them. I had to hold on tight to survive the first couple of stories. You become displaced from your seat on the bus or wherever and are on the tractor that kills Winslow's son on the first page: Winslow simply didn't see his boy running across the field. He didn't see Rodney climb onto the back of the tractor, hands filled with meatloaf and sweetcorn wrapped in foil. Didn't see Rodney's boot slide off the hitch.... ..He whirled to see what he'd plowed, and back there lay a boy like soemthing fallen from the sky. (besides this Icarus one there are other classical allusions, eg the monster in the maze in The Daughter) That simple and effective writing [those diminishing sentences saying so much: Winslow simply didn't see; He didn't see; Didn't see..] is there throughout the book. Winslow cannot cope with what he's (accidentally) done (view spoiler)[and runs off and lives wild in the woods before becoming a kind of freak-show exhibit in an isolated town (hide spoiler)]. At first I thought here's another 'descent' story, like many of Beckett's or Paul Bowles's fabulous 'A Distant Episode', and it does follow that trajectory, but then it goes beyond that and into a kind of redemption, a sliver of hope for the poor man. You are glad for him. The next story - I won't spoil anything by telling you exactly what happens but there is another death, gradually revealed and how a father and son cope with it, how they physically go about the task, gives the story a kind of hyper-reality, lurching and sickening, but it comes with a great depth of feeling (and insight) for the boy. The third, well this has more of the same, again about how people react and cope with death and destruction, how they defend morally (to themselves mainly) their actions. This latter has a woman sheriff out of her depth (not because she is a woman I hasten to add) trying to cope with several tough things - a flood and looters and child abduction and... perhaps I've already said too much. There is some similarity to 'Fargo' in the set up here, and throughout you get touches and flavours of American stories and novels you know, but Heathcock adds his own special intensity. His town is full of the inarticulate or partially articulate up against an indifferent landscape and the full force of weather and human appetite and stupidity, or just plain error and misunderstanding. Through his words you get inside their skins in a unique way.
The book should be read in order as characters appear throughout the book and build on what you know about them previously (although they all stand up as separate pieces too). This is particularly true of Helen, the sheriff I mentioned - she appears in several stories and you follow her development as she attempts to adminster justice and deal with criminal families, and this all comes together in the wonderful title story, the last in the book.
There were a couple of things that niggled - I got a bit lost in the long story 'The Daughter', but that was probably just me. The other thing was the dates - in the flood story we are told it is 2007 and 2008, yet there are very few references to modern life or culture - eg mobiles (cell phones I think they're called in the US), and the film stars that are mentioned, eg Roy Rogers and Trigger and Shirley Temple are from way back, so I was a bit confused there. Apart from that all I have to say is this is a truly stunning collection, one of those that comes along only once in a while and my advice for those that love short stories is to buy it now.(less)
though that says 'Short Stories', it should be 'Short Story' as this has one story in it. Given me by a mate who got it free from some newspaper.
It ha...morethough that says 'Short Stories', it should be 'Short Story' as this has one story in it. Given me by a mate who got it free from some newspaper.
It has three stories in actually! And all three are pretty brilliant, a star lost for the last one 'The Lost Decade' due to underdevelopment(I felt). The title one was great, a fromer drunk, and widower in Paris tries to get his daughter back from the custody of his sister in law and husband. It has marvellous dialogue sequences with the daughter which showed great insight and reminded me of Salinger's later stories about children (eg the Bananafish one). The second one too was a gem 'The Cut Glass Bowl' although maybe a mite contrived (the bowl given the heroine by a spurned lover turns up in crucial ways at turning points of her life).
I'm going to get more of this series, I had to go into hospital for a minor (but embarrassing) procedure and these books fit my dressing gown pocket snugly. (less)
10p! First novel of a trilogy, 3 bob Penguin, pub 1964. Thanks Karl for putting up the cover.
I've always seen Jack Trevor Story's (JTS) name around, h...more10p! First novel of a trilogy, 3 bob Penguin, pub 1964. Thanks Karl for putting up the cover.
I've always seen Jack Trevor Story's (JTS) name around, he wrote many episodes of TV series I watched growing up in the 60s and early 70s, eg Dixon of Dock Green, No Hiding Place and Budgie, and his novels were around (such as 'Mix me a Person' and 'The Trouble with Harry', filmed by Hitchcock). I hadn't really thought much about him until I was in an anthology called 'Neonlit: The Time Out Book of New Writing, Vol 1' (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79...) and found out from the introduction I was runner up for the Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize, sponsored and judged by Michael Moorcock. The terms of the prize, worth £500, are 'based on JTS's famous reply to the bankruptcy judge who asked where his film advance money had gone in such a short time: "You know how it is , your honour, twenty or twenty thousand, it always lasts a week to a fortnight." The terms then, as devised by MM, are that the money be spent within a fortnight and the author should preferably have nothing to show for it.'
Sounds like my type of bloke (great website about him: http://www.jacktrevorstory.co.uk/), but I didn't read, despite my interest in British 50s and 60s 'working class' fiction, part of the whole 'kitchen sink' movement that includes plays and films and was quite a potent cultural force when I was growing up. Then recently I saw this for next to nothing - this being a Penguin classic, and read the biog, which mentioned that JTS began work at 14, at first in a coal office and then in a slaughter house, and he had been married twice with eight children. The book came out in 1963, a year after the film of the same name, scripted by JTS, so I suspect this is a novelised screenplay, and probably hurriedly put together, but nevertheless is full of the manic energy of its main character Albert Argyle, a 'tally boy' who sells all kinds of goods to the needy housewives of post war Britain, recovering from rationing and austerity and feeling the benefits of a new relative affluence, and pounced upon by firms such as Callendars, who Albert works for, signing up customers for hire purchase. He is one of a succession of 'wide boys' who have the lip and wit to sell anything to (and often bed) the wives. A precursor of 'Alfie' (Michael Caine's film came out a couple of years later) and a succesor to Arthur Seaton (Satusday Night and Sunday Morning came out just before). You can see an example of his technique from the opening sequence of the film on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TywAe_...
The book is full of fast mouthed comedy and sarcasm and farce (eg a lot of near misses with husbands not catching wives in flagrante and vice versa). I would recommend it for a blast of the past, and I'd love to see the film, but contemporary readers might balk (baulk?) at the casual sexism and racism, prevalent at the time. These are combined in an incredible sequence when Albert has to apologise to Joe Russel the black bloke in the flat below him for the partying of his mates (Albert has rented the flat of course a la The apartment). Russel sees him coming down the stairs:
'Mr Argyle?' 'That's me, Sambo,' Albert's friendly grin took away the impertinence. He manages to sweet talk Joe, by pretending he is getting married - 'Well, congratulaions!' Joe Russel said. His wife was smiling now round the door, the black child was eating again...'Perhaps you'd like the wife to clear up for you?..She'd be happy to..'
So I was happy to read this, JTS's writing flows along easily and keeps you laughing (if also jolted by its political incorrectness), but not sure I'm going to be seeking out the next two parts of the trilogy about Albert, called 'Something for Nothing' and 'The Urban District Lover'.
Clare (my wife) said it took her a few chapters to get into this book but after that she was hooked. With me it was a couple of pages. This book is a...moreClare (my wife) said it took her a few chapters to get into this book but after that she was hooked. With me it was a couple of pages. This book is a definite page turener about a delusional woman who wrecks families, in that way it's like 'Sleep with Me' (but better) and 'Notes on a Scandal' (but not quite as good). In this case the protagonist is a 'morbidly obese' woman who thinks that most men fancy her... more later (got to go..) (less)
Adam Marek's contribution is good: 'I think people who enjoy short stories have a special gland, one that reponds to the unexpected wit...morereview later...
Adam Marek's contribution is good: 'I think people who enjoy short stories have a special gland, one that reponds to the unexpected with little bursts of pleasure chemicals.. I'm always suspicious of people who love to read, but who don't like short stories. These people, I think, if they have the gland, have a shrivelled thing. an atrophied little apple core. I pity these people. They are missing out on these inky little orgasms.'
I enjoyed Tania Hershman's piece on flash fiction, and how it demands work from the reader. David Gaffney's rules are fun: start in the middle.. make sure the end isn't the end.. make your last line ring like a bell..
similarly Paul Magrs' bullet points: + How come it's only paaragraph one and you're already up your own arse? + there'll be a fabulous detail or image or event most often, two thirds of the way down page 2.
So the book is fun, useful and good to dip into, and affirms you if you're a short story writer and especially a writer of flash. But it really is aimed at tutors of writing courses, or students of writing courses with its exercises and tips and as I am neither, it missed its mark with me. I'm going to keep it around though cuz you never know when you're going to turn into a 'tutor'..
As Vanessa Gebbie quotes from Faulkner in the intro: 'The good artist believes nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity.' (less)
'bout time I read this, so many have recommended. Also bought her 'Short Circuit' (A Guide to the Art of the Short Story). ..enjoyed most of these stor...more'bout time I read this, so many have recommended. Also bought her 'Short Circuit' (A Guide to the Art of the Short Story). ..enjoyed most of these stories, review forthcoming. (busy at the moment)
a fine collection, collecting the odd moments when things open up for people,. maybe the intervention of divinity in the first (title) story, or when someone tries on an addict's skin in another.
Some stories are breathtaking - 'Dodie's Gift' for example, about the shopgirl in the seaside town who is unsure if she's been raped or not in the sand dunes, and 'Cactus Man' about a man meeting his social worker and exposing unexpected depths. Some however have a little of the 'exercise' about them (eg 'Closed Doors', a shoeshiner reflects on the owners of the shoes left otside hotel doors, or 'Excavation' which imagines someone excavating into a person). They're still good, just not quite as thrilling as some of the others.
exuberant, and, at times, exhausting lesbian coming-of-age novel. The language just bursts out of the book as the teenage heroine has a lexicon all of...moreexuberant, and, at times, exhausting lesbian coming-of-age novel. The language just bursts out of the book as the teenage heroine has a lexicon all of her own - men for example are 'fuddies' with frog dangly bits. The mental institution where she ends up is The Bug House, God becomes 'Godzilla' (as in 'for Godzilla's sake'), girls are girlgoyles etc. The characters are strong, particularly her fellow inmates - the see through Princess (who barely eats) - and the beardy doctors (dreambox mechanics)and especially the East European doctor (female of course) she falls for, Doctor Zuk, who is very unconventional in her treatments. Freud becomes Sigmund Food, and then there's Margaret Meat. Delicious, mad but somehow true, kind of vibrating with the girl's vision. Here's an example, at random, of the writing:
It was a fuddy in a mustache, primly clipped. He was undersized down to his bones, and he had all over a kind of fallen-in spruceness and good looks, of the finger-artist type - piano tuner, radio repairman or pickpocket. A miniature, dandefied, mahogany brown fuddy, then, but old: When he sniggered, his jaw had that collapsed frogginess at the corners, like an old doctor's bag...
I know that 'collapsed frogginess' well, being so old. Anyway a wonderful book, but a bit relentless: as I say I found it a bit tiring keeping up with the neologisms, but then that's the teenagers/old gits thing ain't it.
So thanks John for bringing it to my attention. She's unknown here (in the UK). (less)
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