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He Used to Do Dangerous Things
A grieving woman tells her counsellor increasingly elaborate and contradictory accounts of the night her partner died...
A solitary pensioner, cut off from the world in the depths of lockdown, resorts to sitting in his apartment block's meter room to watch the electricity gauges surge with life...
A travelling vending machine operator takes his goldfish with him on his long-haul journeys to alleviate its separation anxiety...
The characters in Gaia Holmes' debut fiction collection adopt complex and ingenious mechanisms for processing a world that is at once too close and too far removed, needing to feel the presence of others, whilst also being overwhelmed by it. Whether it's the trauma of the pandemic and its many isolations, or the chaotic, draining lives of loved ones or neighbours, these stories explore the ingenuity of people striving to rebuild themselves, fortify their defences and, most courageously, connect.
Bringing with her the open-hearted lyricism, intense textures and inherent strangeness that set her poetry apart, Holmes arrives at the short story as the finished a master chronicler of 21st century Britain.
WINNER OF THE ARTS FOUNDATION AWARD FOR PLACE WRITING
A solitary pensioner, cut off from the world in the depths of lockdown, resorts to sitting in his apartment block's meter room to watch the electricity gauges surge with life...
A travelling vending machine operator takes his goldfish with him on his long-haul journeys to alleviate its separation anxiety...
The characters in Gaia Holmes' debut fiction collection adopt complex and ingenious mechanisms for processing a world that is at once too close and too far removed, needing to feel the presence of others, whilst also being overwhelmed by it. Whether it's the trauma of the pandemic and its many isolations, or the chaotic, draining lives of loved ones or neighbours, these stories explore the ingenuity of people striving to rebuild themselves, fortify their defences and, most courageously, connect.
Bringing with her the open-hearted lyricism, intense textures and inherent strangeness that set her poetry apart, Holmes arrives at the short story as the finished a master chronicler of 21st century Britain.
WINNER OF THE ARTS FOUNDATION AWARD FOR PLACE WRITING
- GenresShort Stories
170 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2024
12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 3, 2025
An absolutely stunning collection, so beautifully written and evocative and poignant and vivid in the mind. I honestly didn't want this book to ever end! It's poetic and engaging and realistic, some of the stories being quite hard hitting but very expertly crafted.
It's also refreshing to see the uses of local places in the stories, which you'll appreciate if you're local to the author's hometown yourself. The stories are so profound and varied, and I still find myself thinking about many of them, which tends to be rare in fiction these days.
Absolute masterpiece of a book, easily the best collection of short stories I've ever read.
It's also refreshing to see the uses of local places in the stories, which you'll appreciate if you're local to the author's hometown yourself. The stories are so profound and varied, and I still find myself thinking about many of them, which tends to be rare in fiction these days.
Absolute masterpiece of a book, easily the best collection of short stories I've ever read.
February 26, 2025
If I had to describe this collection in one word, it would be: Homely
Gaia Holmes is a fantastic poet, one of my favourites, this is her first collection of short stories. It is what I'd hoped for and expected in some ways but also shocking and surprisingly uncharacteristic in other ways. I have been spreading details about some of these stories like the were dirty rumours. I love that they feel so alive, I've lived in them enough, that I can regale them like past experiences.
These characters are a little strange but always warm, friendly and nice to spend time with. They can be confusing and poetic in their behaviour but are realistically flawed because I suspect they are based on real people. This book is a magical realistic version of real events. I would recommend to anyone who wants to read a book that inspire emotion and would like a new home from home.
Gaia Holmes is a fantastic poet, one of my favourites, this is her first collection of short stories. It is what I'd hoped for and expected in some ways but also shocking and surprisingly uncharacteristic in other ways. I have been spreading details about some of these stories like the were dirty rumours. I love that they feel so alive, I've lived in them enough, that I can regale them like past experiences.
These characters are a little strange but always warm, friendly and nice to spend time with. They can be confusing and poetic in their behaviour but are realistically flawed because I suspect they are based on real people. This book is a magical realistic version of real events. I would recommend to anyone who wants to read a book that inspire emotion and would like a new home from home.
March 5, 2025
He Used to Do Dangerous Things is the debut short story collection from poet Gaia Holmes. These stories deal with a range of issues including family relations, grief, loneliness, depression and environmental protest. One of the things I enjoyed was how certain motifs occur in several of the stories (eg power cuts and batteries) creating connections between the stories.
The title story focuses on Mick, who used to do dangerous things to raise money for charity, after being diagnosed with depression. Mick sees his depression as a black dog:
"He said he couldn’t walk through depression or away from it, but he could walk with it. He said that sometimes when he was out, it was as if the dog had seen a rabbit and it would race away from him through the gorse. It was a beautiful and powerful thing to watch, such a big, heavy beast running so quickly and weightlessly.”
Unloved Flowers follows Connor, a security guard in a garden centre with a strong feeling for nature. I can totally relate to this description of a train journey:
“The sun’s just coming up, wheat fields a dull gold in the light, eagle on a telegraph pole, swallows swooping, deer. The woman sitting beside him is researching off-grid techno-detox holidays. She scrolls through Instagram photos of barefoot people and yurts and campfires... package holidays, ‘be free with the trees’, ‘Wild women’. The man across the aisle is in some angular virtual world shooting killer robot rabbits and outside there are trees, the smell of rain and foxes, a kestrel, a field humming with the blue of cornflowers, a heron, a huge lolloping hare. Look up! Look out, he wants to shout into the crowded carriage but he doesn’t.”
Connor gets to know a group of homeless people living in a greenspace that becomes threatened with development, becomes part of the community and joins in their fight to save their home, culminating in a beautifully surreal ending.
Environmental protest also features in 198 Methods of NVDA (NVDA is Non-Violent Direct Action) which takes the form of a diary of a participant at the protest against the Newbury bypass. The story gradually reveals the diary writer's motivations for protest.
In Poached, the narrator gives us three inter-related stories. She and her partner are regularly enjoying the eggs from their adopted rescue chickens while watching the nesting birds in their garden and worrying about their own inability to conceive a child. A story that starts off sweet but ends up in a much darker place.
In Ratguts and Lola, a long distance lorry driver picks up two hitch-hikers and introduces them to his goldfish, Lola, who is losing her shine. The journey seems to have a transformational effect on the goldfish.
Two stories explicitly deal with COVID. Defrosting, in which a woman who lost her husband to COVID ponders death as she wonders what to do with the left over Christmas turkey and her husband's favourite robin who has just died in their garden. Surge shows us how one lonely old man tries to cope with lockdown in his block of flats where the neighbours barely acknowledge each other in the stairs. He finds a unique way of dealing with things and is then suprised by an act of generosity by a neighbour.
The other story I want to mention individually is Taste the Raisin, in which a visit from the plumber takes an unexpected turn, with very positive effects for the narrator.
This is an excellent collection of varied stories that show people finding ways of coping and helping each other through difficult situations. Often surreal, sometimes amusing and occasionally dark, these are stories that you will want to read again.
The title story focuses on Mick, who used to do dangerous things to raise money for charity, after being diagnosed with depression. Mick sees his depression as a black dog:
"He said he couldn’t walk through depression or away from it, but he could walk with it. He said that sometimes when he was out, it was as if the dog had seen a rabbit and it would race away from him through the gorse. It was a beautiful and powerful thing to watch, such a big, heavy beast running so quickly and weightlessly.”
Unloved Flowers follows Connor, a security guard in a garden centre with a strong feeling for nature. I can totally relate to this description of a train journey:
“The sun’s just coming up, wheat fields a dull gold in the light, eagle on a telegraph pole, swallows swooping, deer. The woman sitting beside him is researching off-grid techno-detox holidays. She scrolls through Instagram photos of barefoot people and yurts and campfires... package holidays, ‘be free with the trees’, ‘Wild women’. The man across the aisle is in some angular virtual world shooting killer robot rabbits and outside there are trees, the smell of rain and foxes, a kestrel, a field humming with the blue of cornflowers, a heron, a huge lolloping hare. Look up! Look out, he wants to shout into the crowded carriage but he doesn’t.”
Connor gets to know a group of homeless people living in a greenspace that becomes threatened with development, becomes part of the community and joins in their fight to save their home, culminating in a beautifully surreal ending.
Environmental protest also features in 198 Methods of NVDA (NVDA is Non-Violent Direct Action) which takes the form of a diary of a participant at the protest against the Newbury bypass. The story gradually reveals the diary writer's motivations for protest.
In Poached, the narrator gives us three inter-related stories. She and her partner are regularly enjoying the eggs from their adopted rescue chickens while watching the nesting birds in their garden and worrying about their own inability to conceive a child. A story that starts off sweet but ends up in a much darker place.
In Ratguts and Lola, a long distance lorry driver picks up two hitch-hikers and introduces them to his goldfish, Lola, who is losing her shine. The journey seems to have a transformational effect on the goldfish.
Two stories explicitly deal with COVID. Defrosting, in which a woman who lost her husband to COVID ponders death as she wonders what to do with the left over Christmas turkey and her husband's favourite robin who has just died in their garden. Surge shows us how one lonely old man tries to cope with lockdown in his block of flats where the neighbours barely acknowledge each other in the stairs. He finds a unique way of dealing with things and is then suprised by an act of generosity by a neighbour.
The other story I want to mention individually is Taste the Raisin, in which a visit from the plumber takes an unexpected turn, with very positive effects for the narrator.
This is an excellent collection of varied stories that show people finding ways of coping and helping each other through difficult situations. Often surreal, sometimes amusing and occasionally dark, these are stories that you will want to read again.
March 1, 2025
This is a beautifully crafted exploration of love, loss, and the quiet significance of everyday moments. The opening chapter powerfully highlights how mundane rituals take on deeper meaning in grief, while Folding turns simple acts like writing a shopping list or folding clothes into symbols of memory and absence, made even more poignant by its COVID-19 backdrop. Naming Things resonates through its familiar yet unexpectedly profound reflection on the names we choose and what they come to represent. Holmes’ poetic prose and keen eye for life’s small but defining details make this a deeply moving and relatable collection.
February 26, 2025
Gaia Holmes' first short story collection is a strange and wonderful thing—comforting yet unsettling, familiar yet full of surprises. Her characters feel like people you might know, though they speak and act in ways that twist reality just enough to make the world seem a little more magical, a little more off-kilter. They’re flawed, tender, and sometimes confusing, but always compelling.
December 13, 2025
Beautiful collection of short stories from Gaia Holmes. Stories that were whimsical, some emotional, and all heartfelt. Brilliant!
June 5, 2025
Gaia Holmes' debut collection of short stories is filled with beautiful but sometimes visceral language, dark and deep themes, and characters full of depth, frailty, and many facets.
It's a collection that's mainly speculative, but usually deals with that side in a way that can be seen as existing in delirium or a dream, but in a way that is not disappointing, but adds intrigue to the imagery, plot and characters.
Amongst the horror and the darkness, I picked up a humour that can come out in the absurdity of some of the situations and the characters, which adds good balance, and I found amusing.
A few of the stories deal with the 2020 pandemic, setting it at a certain time, but do so in a unique way. There is great imagination on display in the stories, but also a deep relatability.
A lot of the stories deal with dark and heavy subject matter, and some of them, I had to stop for a bit before the next. For other stories, I just stopped for the appreciation and to reflect on the experience. Two different types of deep breaths.
There is no bad or dull story among them - all of the stories have an interesting edge, although some of them stand out to me more than others. A book of unique brilliance.
It's a collection that's mainly speculative, but usually deals with that side in a way that can be seen as existing in delirium or a dream, but in a way that is not disappointing, but adds intrigue to the imagery, plot and characters.
Amongst the horror and the darkness, I picked up a humour that can come out in the absurdity of some of the situations and the characters, which adds good balance, and I found amusing.
A few of the stories deal with the 2020 pandemic, setting it at a certain time, but do so in a unique way. There is great imagination on display in the stories, but also a deep relatability.
A lot of the stories deal with dark and heavy subject matter, and some of them, I had to stop for a bit before the next. For other stories, I just stopped for the appreciation and to reflect on the experience. Two different types of deep breaths.
There is no bad or dull story among them - all of the stories have an interesting edge, although some of them stand out to me more than others. A book of unique brilliance.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews