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Infidelities
This new collection of stories offers a candid peek at infidelity in all its guises. These are tales of lust, deceit, resentment and regret - and of the secrets and lies that can chip away at human relationships.
In a series of interwoven dramas, we find mothers yearning for adventure, for the exhilaration of the open road or the anonymity of the forest; fathers absent in body or mind; husbands who look the other way; complacency turned to spite and apathy turned to betrayal. At the same time Gunn pursues the glorious rush of a snap decision, the liberty of answering that siren call of a better life elsewhere.
Written with Gunn's trademark attention to nuances of behaviour, motive and even landscape, Infidelity is a temptingly beautiful work that asks 'What if?' and dares to find out.
In a series of interwoven dramas, we find mothers yearning for adventure, for the exhilaration of the open road or the anonymity of the forest; fathers absent in body or mind; husbands who look the other way; complacency turned to spite and apathy turned to betrayal. At the same time Gunn pursues the glorious rush of a snap decision, the liberty of answering that siren call of a better life elsewhere.
Written with Gunn's trademark attention to nuances of behaviour, motive and even landscape, Infidelity is a temptingly beautiful work that asks 'What if?' and dares to find out.
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First published November 4, 2014
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About the author
Kirsty Gunn
39 books56 followersKirsty Gunn was born in 1960 in New Zealand and educated at Queen Margaret College and Victoria University, Wellington, and at Oxford, where she completed an M.Phil. After moving to London she worked as a freelance journalist.
Her fiction includes the acclaimed Rain (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award; The Keepsake (1997), the fragmented narrative of a young woman recalling painful memories; and Featherstone (2002), a story concerned with love in all its variety. Her short stories have been included in many anthologies including The Junky's Christmas and Other Yuletide Stories (1994) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories about Childhood (1997).
She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary. Her latest books are The Boy and the Sea (2006), winner of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award; and 44 Things (2007), a book of personal reflections over the course of one year.
Kirsty Gunn lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Her fiction includes the acclaimed Rain (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award; The Keepsake (1997), the fragmented narrative of a young woman recalling painful memories; and Featherstone (2002), a story concerned with love in all its variety. Her short stories have been included in many anthologies including The Junky's Christmas and Other Yuletide Stories (1994) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories about Childhood (1997).
She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary. Her latest books are The Boy and the Sea (2006), winner of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award; and 44 Things (2007), a book of personal reflections over the course of one year.
Kirsty Gunn lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
November 1, 2020
Der deutsche Titel ist "Untreuen".
Die Kurzgeschichtensammlung geschrieben von Kirsty Gunn, alle Alltagsmomente aus der Sicht von verschiedenen Frauen. Ich bin eigentlich kein großer Freund von Kurzgeschichten, aber manche haben mir hier besonders gefallen. Den Geschichten würde ich zwischen 2-4 Sterne geben, daher die 3 Sterne für das Buch.
Die Geschichten sind sehr schön erzählt und auch sehr bildlich beschrieben, sodass man direkt das Gefühl hat die Atmosphäre zu fühlen, die Farben der Natur zu sehen und diese auch zu riechen. Die Frauen sind fast alle in gewisser Art und Weise untreu, sei es zum Ehemann, zu den eigenen Kindern oder zu sich selbst. Am interessantesten fand ich die Geschichten "Untreue" und "Glenhead". Die anderen Geschichten waren entweder ok oder zu schwach um alleinstehend zu überleben.
Das Buch half mir allerdings dabei zu verstehen, dass die Seitenzahl eigentlich unbedeutend ist um Gefühle zu vermitteln oder eine Geschichte zu erzählen. "Glenhead" zum Beispiel schafft es die Geschichte einer Frau zu erzählen mit ihrem Freund und ihren 2 Kindern aus voriger Ehe, die in einer Situation gefangen ist, aus der sie keine gute Lösung findet. Die Gefühlslage der Frau und die Emotionen der Teenager fand ich sehr schön beschrieben und auch die Metaphern waren sehr toll gewählt.
** Dieses Buch wurde mir über NetGalley als E-Book zur Verfügung gestellt **
Die Kurzgeschichtensammlung geschrieben von Kirsty Gunn, alle Alltagsmomente aus der Sicht von verschiedenen Frauen. Ich bin eigentlich kein großer Freund von Kurzgeschichten, aber manche haben mir hier besonders gefallen. Den Geschichten würde ich zwischen 2-4 Sterne geben, daher die 3 Sterne für das Buch.
Die Geschichten sind sehr schön erzählt und auch sehr bildlich beschrieben, sodass man direkt das Gefühl hat die Atmosphäre zu fühlen, die Farben der Natur zu sehen und diese auch zu riechen. Die Frauen sind fast alle in gewisser Art und Weise untreu, sei es zum Ehemann, zu den eigenen Kindern oder zu sich selbst. Am interessantesten fand ich die Geschichten "Untreue" und "Glenhead". Die anderen Geschichten waren entweder ok oder zu schwach um alleinstehend zu überleben.
Das Buch half mir allerdings dabei zu verstehen, dass die Seitenzahl eigentlich unbedeutend ist um Gefühle zu vermitteln oder eine Geschichte zu erzählen. "Glenhead" zum Beispiel schafft es die Geschichte einer Frau zu erzählen mit ihrem Freund und ihren 2 Kindern aus voriger Ehe, die in einer Situation gefangen ist, aus der sie keine gute Lösung findet. Die Gefühlslage der Frau und die Emotionen der Teenager fand ich sehr schön beschrieben und auch die Metaphern waren sehr toll gewählt.
** Dieses Buch wurde mir über NetGalley als E-Book zur Verfügung gestellt **
June 15, 2019
Surprised I actually bothered to finish this. Became obvious very early on that it wasn't my thing at all, but I ploughed through it anyway. Largely failed to relate to any of it. Felt very self-indulgent and I struggled to care about any of the characters.
June 10, 2015
There is a well-documented disparity between women writing stories dismissed as 'confessional', and men writing stories; a disparity which is often used to undermine the imaginations of female writers who are variously seen as too emotional and merely recording their own lives with a lack of artistry. The opening and closing fictions of Gunn's collection of short stories 'Infidelities' are ones which probe this disparity, featuring women trying to work out how to write out their lived experience. Gunn's closing speaker Helen worries about the effect that too much truth might have on her husband and children, the story's interest in infidelity one centring on fiction's infidelities to the past but also to the present, as alternate pathways are explored that might leave our immediate family hurt. Gunn's speaker in the collection's prologue revels in her own presence in these stories, establishing that 'I was involved', 'I was always there', and highlighting her own difference from other writers (characterised by James Joyce, whose short stories 'Dubliners', centred around the theme of the city, are somewhat similar in similar thematic arrangement to Gunn's tales which all probe the notion of 'Infidelities'). Unlike Joyce, and the impersonal artistry she sees him representing, Gunn's speaker declares: 'I am not the same. I'm not like him. I'm not coming in on something and using it. I'm not discovering the story, and then writing it down. No. From the beginning, I was there. I'm not cold at all, you see. I'm in the midst.' Whether or not we are supposed to identify with this speaker (and I can find no reasons we are not), Gunn introduces themes of intense self-awareness of artistic style from the outset. These are stories unlike the cold masculine ideal. These are something else, an essence of a person; a reclaiming of the confessional style that I have not seen many female writers trying to celebrate (most are trying to escape this reductive label). It is from this point that the short stories begin.
The trouble with a writer-speaker proclaiming her difference - and, it is felt, superiority - to James Joyce is that it can very easily come across as an act of hubris that leaves a reader looking for reasons to put the book down. Gunn is obsessed with the artist-figure, as you can see in her non-fiction writings and in this preamble story, and this self-awareness and self-reflection can get a bit tedious. Just as the final story's speaker is desperately aware of all the different ways she might construct a story, Gunn's writer-character seems desperately aware of the many - and best - ways she might construct herself. This self-awareness also permeates the other fictions: characters are always asking themselves rhetorical questions: “Because she’d kind of known, hadn’t she?” and commenting on form:“Oh, don’t do that . . . don’t go turning all that into fiction. Bad enough that it happened, darling.” This self-awareness is interesting in so far as it probes the idea of the writer as an adulterer, and the extent to which our lives are pre-set stories that we fit ourselves into, but it sometimes feels as though the characters are all the same narrator. It's hard to believe in them as people.
This problem of sameness continues in the collection. Perhaps the downside of being 'there' in each story, of being 'in the midst' of it, is that each story feels somehow caught up in the same one life that occurs over and over with a couple of notable exceptions. Gunn's protagonists are not just women, they are overwhelmingly middle-class women. One story takes place in a rural commuter village in Oxfordshire, as a woman walks through the covered market and sees a buddhist monk; the tells the sad story of a successful composer with homes in London and an unnamed Scottish island; the third is a tale of highbrow academia and exclusive parties; in the fourth an epiphany about a woman's life is triggered by the realisation that a Georgian house she and her partner are considering purchasing is not as large as it is in the online photos; the seventh takes place during open-air opera; the eight during a skiing holiday; the twelfth and final story is that of a housewife who then enrols on a university degree program to fulfil an old ambition. I am in no way trying to suggest that middle-class narratives cannot be good, or interesting, or deep, or bold, but this repetition of class coupled with the narrative self-awareness feels a little indulgent at times. Having just read John Burnside's 'Something Like Happy' collection of short stories, focusing on the epiphanic moments of working-class individuals, I was deeply aware of the opportunities - the luxury of opportunities - these women had to act on their desires, and felt a greater frustration when they did not, or were too self-pitying. Gunn's story 'A Story She Might Tell Herself' in particular was so stereotypically middle-class it was almost a farce: how a woman caught sight of a buddhist monk and this spiritually awakened her without any real rumination of buddhist thought at all. The image of her casting of her shoes to run barefoot through the forest as a metaphor for epiphany felt like a bad earth mother joke. Obviously the stories dealing with death and implied abuse were moving, but it felt too much like Gunn uses these events to manipulate emotions where her narrative style fails to do so.
I would, however, be doing the collection a huge disservice if I were not to mention the exceptions to what I have said so far. 'The Highland Stories', a collection of shorter, almost flash, fictions, are the collection's high point. Set on a remote highland farm after a past tragedy, Gunn creates a powerfully realistic set of child characters as well as their elderly drunkard grandfather. The stories are unflinchingly violent, affecting, and the characterisation is perfect. Gunn's children are smarter than they are thought, far more emotional than one might initially believe, and far darker than we would want to imagine. The harsh highland landscapes and the realities of rural poverty are the perfect backdrop for this collection of sad events. 'The Caravan', 'Tangi' - a story looking at white/Maori divides in New Zealand, and 'Dick' are also excellent. It is interesting to note that, with the exception of 'The Caravan' - written about an elderly couple whose relationship is threatened by dementia - all these stories are written from children's perspectives. It seems that Gunn's adult writer is at her most skilful when she is not most obviously 'in the midst' of her fictions, but allows herself some imaginative distance.
This is a good collection, but - surprisingly, considering I loved Gunn's 'The Big Music' - I was not a real fan of much of it, much as I wanted to be.
The trouble with a writer-speaker proclaiming her difference - and, it is felt, superiority - to James Joyce is that it can very easily come across as an act of hubris that leaves a reader looking for reasons to put the book down. Gunn is obsessed with the artist-figure, as you can see in her non-fiction writings and in this preamble story, and this self-awareness and self-reflection can get a bit tedious. Just as the final story's speaker is desperately aware of all the different ways she might construct a story, Gunn's writer-character seems desperately aware of the many - and best - ways she might construct herself. This self-awareness also permeates the other fictions: characters are always asking themselves rhetorical questions: “Because she’d kind of known, hadn’t she?” and commenting on form:“Oh, don’t do that . . . don’t go turning all that into fiction. Bad enough that it happened, darling.” This self-awareness is interesting in so far as it probes the idea of the writer as an adulterer, and the extent to which our lives are pre-set stories that we fit ourselves into, but it sometimes feels as though the characters are all the same narrator. It's hard to believe in them as people.
This problem of sameness continues in the collection. Perhaps the downside of being 'there' in each story, of being 'in the midst' of it, is that each story feels somehow caught up in the same one life that occurs over and over with a couple of notable exceptions. Gunn's protagonists are not just women, they are overwhelmingly middle-class women. One story takes place in a rural commuter village in Oxfordshire, as a woman walks through the covered market and sees a buddhist monk; the tells the sad story of a successful composer with homes in London and an unnamed Scottish island; the third is a tale of highbrow academia and exclusive parties; in the fourth an epiphany about a woman's life is triggered by the realisation that a Georgian house she and her partner are considering purchasing is not as large as it is in the online photos; the seventh takes place during open-air opera; the eight during a skiing holiday; the twelfth and final story is that of a housewife who then enrols on a university degree program to fulfil an old ambition. I am in no way trying to suggest that middle-class narratives cannot be good, or interesting, or deep, or bold, but this repetition of class coupled with the narrative self-awareness feels a little indulgent at times. Having just read John Burnside's 'Something Like Happy' collection of short stories, focusing on the epiphanic moments of working-class individuals, I was deeply aware of the opportunities - the luxury of opportunities - these women had to act on their desires, and felt a greater frustration when they did not, or were too self-pitying. Gunn's story 'A Story She Might Tell Herself' in particular was so stereotypically middle-class it was almost a farce: how a woman caught sight of a buddhist monk and this spiritually awakened her without any real rumination of buddhist thought at all. The image of her casting of her shoes to run barefoot through the forest as a metaphor for epiphany felt like a bad earth mother joke. Obviously the stories dealing with death and implied abuse were moving, but it felt too much like Gunn uses these events to manipulate emotions where her narrative style fails to do so.
I would, however, be doing the collection a huge disservice if I were not to mention the exceptions to what I have said so far. 'The Highland Stories', a collection of shorter, almost flash, fictions, are the collection's high point. Set on a remote highland farm after a past tragedy, Gunn creates a powerfully realistic set of child characters as well as their elderly drunkard grandfather. The stories are unflinchingly violent, affecting, and the characterisation is perfect. Gunn's children are smarter than they are thought, far more emotional than one might initially believe, and far darker than we would want to imagine. The harsh highland landscapes and the realities of rural poverty are the perfect backdrop for this collection of sad events. 'The Caravan', 'Tangi' - a story looking at white/Maori divides in New Zealand, and 'Dick' are also excellent. It is interesting to note that, with the exception of 'The Caravan' - written about an elderly couple whose relationship is threatened by dementia - all these stories are written from children's perspectives. It seems that Gunn's adult writer is at her most skilful when she is not most obviously 'in the midst' of her fictions, but allows herself some imaginative distance.
This is a good collection, but - surprisingly, considering I loved Gunn's 'The Big Music' - I was not a real fan of much of it, much as I wanted to be.
March 13, 2025
I have had this book for a year now and I have shirked away reading this because I was waiting for the right mood to set me into it. The right mood did set in because I wanted a break from novels and read another form. Kristy Gunn's set of short stories was the right pick for it. With a tantalising title and a prelude of a woman being infidel to her husband and children, the collection picks up and unfolds a set of stories where Gunn leads us into the different ways of being an infidel. I must admit that it took me a second or more to sink my teeth into the very first story. We follow a couple in a village in Oxfordshire. The man is mad about seeing a monk and he asks his wife to go find him in the woods late at night. She takes it at face value and goes in search. I liked the way it began. I was trying to make sense of Gunn's style. I thought Gunn was too much in the head of her character but as the stories after this come, you begin to see the genius that the writer is. I particularly loved 'The Highland Stories'. It was a long short story about a family told from the perspective of a girl. She sees a cousin of hers behave erratically only soon to discover that there is a ghost that lurks in him, with him and is him. The writing and mastery of Gunn soared in this one. Sometimes Gunn be too literal with her images like she was in 'The Wolf on the Road' but there are stories like 'Elegy' or 'The Caravan' where one gets to also see the imagery live beyond the pages and last in the readers' minds. I am very excited to read Gunn's novels. I think she is a wonderful writer who can make her reader completely absorbed in her thoughts. Yes, this is what I exactly mean. Gunn is a writer of thoughts. She thinks about the art of writing, of literature, of scholarship, a setting and then life. And this works magic in the story. Each story in this collection is distilled through this mix and make for a stunning portrait of how a writer thinks. Lyrical, thought-provoking and intimate, this collection stays true to its title and manages to bring infidelity out beyond the idea of romantic betrayal. I would like to thank my dearest friend (@shaonirakshit) for gifting this book to me and introducing me to Gunn.
October 20, 2017
I really enjoyed watching Kirsty Gunn at work on her short stories. I say watching because she has a method of standing outside what she writes. The title story Infidelities is a very good example of this. Some of her connected short fiction didn't add up to much for me. The best story was Foxes. About a young woman among a group of her partners friends, it is a complete, substantial, detailed, beautiful, and subtly emotional account of a moment of change. Another thing I liked was the author's writing about place - she does the Katherine Mansfield trick of making place both detailed and universal. Her exception is Tangi, clearly set in NZ.
January 3, 2025
2/5 —
Sad to say but this was very very boring.
Sad to say but this was very very boring.
February 29, 2024
It is so bad
I want to give you a zero
But that's not possible
So I give you a one
I want to give you a zero
But that's not possible
So I give you a one
November 24, 2018
Generally I read very few books of short stories. I came to this one of the back of the author's most recent novel Caroline's Bikini which I thought was excellent. These short stories are for the most part excellent also.
I enjoyed all of them bar The Highland Stories which didn't fit in with the others - and was also about children which is a turnoff for me personally. Every other story though did that magical thing of making me want to know more ... more detail more story more about each heroine ... if I may use that word. The writing is very literary and deliberately self-aware but it is beautiful the way Ms. Gunn catches and presents tomus the thought processes in the minds of her main characters.
I enjoyed all of them bar The Highland Stories which didn't fit in with the others - and was also about children which is a turnoff for me personally. Every other story though did that magical thing of making me want to know more ... more detail more story more about each heroine ... if I may use that word. The writing is very literary and deliberately self-aware but it is beautiful the way Ms. Gunn catches and presents tomus the thought processes in the minds of her main characters.
March 25, 2018
This is a curious collection of sixteen short stories (if you count the 'prologue-like 'The start of it...'). In my rush from one story to the next I missed the subtlety of the book being divided into three sections called Going Out, Staying Out and Never Coming Home. Remembering those sections might have helped to link the stories together as a more cohesive whole.
The inside of the front cover informed me that these are "interwoven dramas" and for I while I was looking for a link between them. I went back to look at the names of the characters in each of the tales. The name Richard is there twice, so is Helen and Elizabeth, but they are not the same people, and so I concluded that the stories are not linked beyond the themes of relationships and sometimes infidelities both real and imagined.
I liked the settings for these stories, we move between London and the Scottish Highland and a couple of times to New Zealand where Kirsty Gunn was born. These are all places that are familiar to the author, places she works and lives, and her sense of those places, their landscapes and their stories is very present in the writing. Being familiar with all of them myself made the stories resonate for me.
The tale called 'Elegy', set in London, brought back memories of living there for me, of leafy suburbs in North London and one street with a little pub at the end. In this story Elizabeth comes back to her old flat which has been rented out for years, plays her old piano, and recalls moments from her life there. There is a deep sadness in the story which Gunn captures beautifully, filling it with atmosphere.
I also loved one of the New Zealand stories, called 'Tangi', in which a young girl goes to stay with her old Nanni every summer. There is a beautifully constructed contrast of the girl's very proper mother, sitting stiffly in the car, and her grandmother with hidden stories and dark secrets and the informality of her half-Maori slang which the girls mother would have hated.
Many of these stories are nuanced, they don't immediately make sense, but need to be thought about and considered, little sections need to be read again more carefully to be sure that you have understood fully. A very enjoyable collection.
The inside of the front cover informed me that these are "interwoven dramas" and for I while I was looking for a link between them. I went back to look at the names of the characters in each of the tales. The name Richard is there twice, so is Helen and Elizabeth, but they are not the same people, and so I concluded that the stories are not linked beyond the themes of relationships and sometimes infidelities both real and imagined.
I liked the settings for these stories, we move between London and the Scottish Highland and a couple of times to New Zealand where Kirsty Gunn was born. These are all places that are familiar to the author, places she works and lives, and her sense of those places, their landscapes and their stories is very present in the writing. Being familiar with all of them myself made the stories resonate for me.
The tale called 'Elegy', set in London, brought back memories of living there for me, of leafy suburbs in North London and one street with a little pub at the end. In this story Elizabeth comes back to her old flat which has been rented out for years, plays her old piano, and recalls moments from her life there. There is a deep sadness in the story which Gunn captures beautifully, filling it with atmosphere.
I also loved one of the New Zealand stories, called 'Tangi', in which a young girl goes to stay with her old Nanni every summer. There is a beautifully constructed contrast of the girl's very proper mother, sitting stiffly in the car, and her grandmother with hidden stories and dark secrets and the informality of her half-Maori slang which the girls mother would have hated.
Many of these stories are nuanced, they don't immediately make sense, but need to be thought about and considered, little sections need to be read again more carefully to be sure that you have understood fully. A very enjoyable collection.
Currently reading
April 13, 2024My review of each of the stories:
1. A Story She Might Tell Herself: Nothing happened in this story..the buildup was for nothing, the ending was so...incomplete? It felt like a poem that needs to be interpreted, the plot as a whole didn't say much. I hate this
2. The Scenario: again nothing happened in the story. What exactly was she going to do to herself..can we please be more specific?
1. A Story She Might Tell Herself: Nothing happened in this story..the buildup was for nothing, the ending was so...incomplete? It felt like a poem that needs to be interpreted, the plot as a whole didn't say much. I hate this
2. The Scenario: again nothing happened in the story. What exactly was she going to do to herself..can we please be more specific?
May 26, 2025
the blurb sounded soooo promising but sometimes you buy a book at oxfam for £2.99 and then you read it and then you see why it was at oxfam in the first place. it ended on a really strong note - i have to acknowledge that! but i won't let the recency effect get to me. overall i was just looking forward to finish this
April 19, 2020
Not a single story I didn't love. Each story with a unique approach or point of view, variations of style, but with a strong central voice. Touching on the ways we are unfaithful - to ourselves, to each other, to the truth - cheaters and cheated in turn. Lovely and heartbreaking and hopeful.
February 26, 2018
Quite uneven this book of short stories
Some superb
Others not
And I was disappointed more were not set in NZ
Some superb
Others not
And I was disappointed more were not set in NZ
February 11, 2022
I really don’t think it a bad book I just wasn’t my type, I felt like the characters weren’t well made and the writing collided with itself, even though there were two stories I liked.
March 13, 2022
i have no idea what i just read. there is no plot, it was not enjoyable at all.
October 24, 2022
No plot, just vibes and unnecessary repetition
November 13, 2024
This was my first time trying to read short stories and I liked some of them and others were not quite my style but it was still interesting
January 7, 2025
Struggled to read it at times. Some stories were beautiful metaphors, others felt a bit overdone, trying to be too cryptic for what they actually were. Overall it’s a decent read.
January 3, 2016
2.5
This book started out really promising, but then most of the stories started to feel the same. Obviously the stories were going to focus on similar themes (relationships, infidelity, unhappiness, regret), but it felt like these themes were being recycled with the same characters. White, middle-class women (often mothers) in unhappy marriages. It would have been more interesting to see these themes explored through different characters in different life situations. Yes, I'm sure it would have been a harder collection to write and a hell of a lot of research would have to be done to do it right, but it would have made for a more interesting collection. Instead, I felt like I read the same story several times.
And parts of it were just a little odd to read. I felt particularly uncomfortable in "A Story She Might Tell Herself" when the main character felt herself experience a spiritual awakening after encountering a Buddhist monk, who just happened to appear in their farmers' market to sit and meditate. It just felt a little... off? This whole othering of different cultures generally makes for uncomfortable reading imo.
All those things being said, her writing is beautiful. It flows. It's poetic. It's evocative. Her writing cannot really be faulted. There were also a couple of gems; I really enjoyed The Highland Stories, The Scenario, Dick and Elegy. I liked the linking of human emotions with the wild. I appreciated the snapshots in time that we got of these characters. It was definitely enjoyable to read and her writing is the type of writing that you can just sink in to. If it wasn't for the similarity of many of the stories and the characters within them it could have been really good. But because of that it fell just short of average.
This book started out really promising, but then most of the stories started to feel the same. Obviously the stories were going to focus on similar themes (relationships, infidelity, unhappiness, regret), but it felt like these themes were being recycled with the same characters. White, middle-class women (often mothers) in unhappy marriages. It would have been more interesting to see these themes explored through different characters in different life situations. Yes, I'm sure it would have been a harder collection to write and a hell of a lot of research would have to be done to do it right, but it would have made for a more interesting collection. Instead, I felt like I read the same story several times.
And parts of it were just a little odd to read. I felt particularly uncomfortable in "A Story She Might Tell Herself" when the main character felt herself experience a spiritual awakening after encountering a Buddhist monk, who just happened to appear in their farmers' market to sit and meditate. It just felt a little... off? This whole othering of different cultures generally makes for uncomfortable reading imo.
All those things being said, her writing is beautiful. It flows. It's poetic. It's evocative. Her writing cannot really be faulted. There were also a couple of gems; I really enjoyed The Highland Stories, The Scenario, Dick and Elegy. I liked the linking of human emotions with the wild. I appreciated the snapshots in time that we got of these characters. It was definitely enjoyable to read and her writing is the type of writing that you can just sink in to. If it wasn't for the similarity of many of the stories and the characters within them it could have been really good. But because of that it fell just short of average.
November 8, 2014
The title of the book provides a clear and instant encapsulation of the content of this collection of short stories. It is indeed a detailed study of infidelity in its many different guises and examined from several viewpoints, both insider and outsider, and from observers of a variety of age groups. The nature of the infidelity in some cases is more to do with a breach of trust than the more commonly associated act of adultery.
Kirsty Gunn’s skill of engaging the reader in a compelling immersion into an insidious slow-burn of building discomfort, as well as creating an emotional push and pull, is excellent. The stories are at times approached so obliquely that it is important to pay attention or the dénouement may lose its power or element of surprise. Although it has to be said that at a subconscious level the reader should be aware that something significant has happened. In some cases the writing has the feel of a detective novel, where the clues of the significant event are drip feed in such a way that a reader is pulled through the story by wanting to find out what is going to happen next, to see if they are right. The author is particularly good at relating a story from a child’s viewpoint, while retelling it as an adult; one of the more difficult literary juggling tricks to pull off. Woven into the emotional landscape is that of the lyrically wrought physical one, which adds to the texture of the prose.
On the whole it is a collection that rings true and digs deep into challenging emotional experiences that should resonate at some level with readers.
Kirsty Gunn’s skill of engaging the reader in a compelling immersion into an insidious slow-burn of building discomfort, as well as creating an emotional push and pull, is excellent. The stories are at times approached so obliquely that it is important to pay attention or the dénouement may lose its power or element of surprise. Although it has to be said that at a subconscious level the reader should be aware that something significant has happened. In some cases the writing has the feel of a detective novel, where the clues of the significant event are drip feed in such a way that a reader is pulled through the story by wanting to find out what is going to happen next, to see if they are right. The author is particularly good at relating a story from a child’s viewpoint, while retelling it as an adult; one of the more difficult literary juggling tricks to pull off. Woven into the emotional landscape is that of the lyrically wrought physical one, which adds to the texture of the prose.
On the whole it is a collection that rings true and digs deep into challenging emotional experiences that should resonate at some level with readers.
September 11, 2016
This is my first encounter with Kirsty Gunn's writing, and for me it's the writing itself that really piqued my interest. Throughout the collection, her prose feels woven with an almost irregular cadence, in a way that reminds me of the constant interruptions I found in Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" (though without all the semicolons and brackets), that build the story in my head like a tapestry, like some mosaic thing building a whole. And though the running theme of the collection, that of infidelity, acts as an initial hook, the real exploration isn't so much infidelities to ones relationships, but rather the infidelities to one's own sense of self.
abandoned
March 6, 2025DNF at 18%.
April 18, 2016
This collection of stories linked by a tell-tale theme plays out sumptuously. The writing is a delight. Gunn clearly loves word play and the beguiling idiosyncrasies of language. Her'Infidelities' embalm the reader in an ocean of interior dialogue guiding them to swim with and against the current. I came away feeling drenched and delighted - thirsty for more of this author's writing.
Read
December 7, 2014Kirsty Gunn recently said that a good short story should "change your emotional temperature" and this is exactly what the stories in this collection do.
January 3, 2015
This writing is superb. vivid, lyrical, poetic, sublime
January 2, 2015
Showed some signs of promise, but all a bit samey.
September 17, 2019
Picked this up after reading rave reviews, but was left rather disappointed. Collection of short stories which suffers from there being too many tales of middle class existential angst.
Read
December 24, 2025DNF
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