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Stuff
“This is my story. This is my story. All persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. All mistakes are intentional, except for those that aren’t” —Lucy
Stuff is a story about stuff, and about Stuff. Told from the increasingly fragmented perspective of Lucy, a writer hopelessly adrift in her early twenties, it’s a story about confusion, loneliness, love and weird substances. About trying to choose your own adventure, and coming to terms with the possibility that you can’t. You think navigating life, love, sex, jobs, frustrated creativity, middle-class guilt, indifferent cities and the anticlimax of university graduation is hard? Try doing it while under the influence of a mysterious drug called Stuff, which may have psychic qualities and steadily blends the minds of you and your friends until you literally can’t tell where their thoughts end and yours begin. Then add social media and enjoy your very own personal apocalypse. Information overload; existential paranoia; telepathic love triangles; trying to find some sort of meaning in Britain in 2014. You know. Usual stuff.
Stuff is a story about stuff, and about Stuff. Told from the increasingly fragmented perspective of Lucy, a writer hopelessly adrift in her early twenties, it’s a story about confusion, loneliness, love and weird substances. About trying to choose your own adventure, and coming to terms with the possibility that you can’t. You think navigating life, love, sex, jobs, frustrated creativity, middle-class guilt, indifferent cities and the anticlimax of university graduation is hard? Try doing it while under the influence of a mysterious drug called Stuff, which may have psychic qualities and steadily blends the minds of you and your friends until you literally can’t tell where their thoughts end and yours begin. Then add social media and enjoy your very own personal apocalypse. Information overload; existential paranoia; telepathic love triangles; trying to find some sort of meaning in Britain in 2014. You know. Usual stuff.
123 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 31, 2014
7 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Mohamed
13 books20 followersStefan Mohamed graduated from Kingston University’s creative writing programme with a first class degree and the creative writing prize for his year.
He went on to win the unpublished writer’s category of the Dylan Thomas Prize for his coming of age superhero crossover novel, Bitter Sixteen, which feature probably the world's coolest superhero sidekick – a talking beagle (and die-hard Bogart fan) called Daryl.
Stefan’s debut novella Stuff was published on the Modern Dreams e-book list by Salt Publishing in November 2014. His debut full length novel Bitter Sixteen will be published by Salt in the Spring of 2015, with sequels Ace of Spiders and Stanly’s Ghost following at yearly intervals.
Bristol-based Stefan is a self-confessed SF/F junkie and festival-head and writes on geekery and music for various websites including Den of Geek. He is on Twitter - @stefmowords - and also performs poetry, which you can catch on his Youtube channel, Stefmotube, as well as on his Facebook page.
He went on to win the unpublished writer’s category of the Dylan Thomas Prize for his coming of age superhero crossover novel, Bitter Sixteen, which feature probably the world's coolest superhero sidekick – a talking beagle (and die-hard Bogart fan) called Daryl.
Stefan’s debut novella Stuff was published on the Modern Dreams e-book list by Salt Publishing in November 2014. His debut full length novel Bitter Sixteen will be published by Salt in the Spring of 2015, with sequels Ace of Spiders and Stanly’s Ghost following at yearly intervals.
Bristol-based Stefan is a self-confessed SF/F junkie and festival-head and writes on geekery and music for various websites including Den of Geek. He is on Twitter - @stefmowords - and also performs poetry, which you can catch on his Youtube channel, Stefmotube, as well as on his Facebook page.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 5, 2015
Wow. This is such an in toxicating slice of the modern zeistgeist that one hankers for the full cake: Stefan Mahomed could easily have turned his novella into a fully-fledged novel. That this 26-year-old Bristol author has not chosen to done so speaks of a writerly discipline quite rare in one so young.
It is that very youth, however, that is quite likely to irritate as many readers as it intrigues. The dissipated 20-somethings in Stuff are so desperately in search of the (missing) link between meaning and pleasure that the reader often just wants to slap them upside the head and tell them to just fucking get a life.
Here we have a troika of characters – Lee, Laika and Lucy – with the narrative viewpoint jumping between all three, often unannounced. The text is full of strikethroughs to indicate a ‘work in progress’ (often the full meaning is only apparent through what has been elided, which is a neat trick).
Mahomed sure has enough neat tricks up his sleeve to make Stuff a literary poster child for postmodernism. I frowned a bit when the narrator told me to fuck off, but some of the ‘stuff’ going on here is to disrupt the traditional relationship between reader and author. This is a bit tricky, as all the reader has to do is close the book, whereafter the author is literally fucked, despite his so-cool-that-it-burns savoir faire.
Mahomed, however, makes us fall quite madly in love with Lucy and her epic quest for cosmic interconnectedness (which leads to the mysterious drug of the title, which is like having the internet in your head, only better. I am unsure if that is a recommendation, actually.)
There are some telling references to living in the shadow of the fallen towers of 9/11, and some bitter commentary on the failure of youth culture, from hippies to grunge. There is also melancholy and sadness here, and some good old-fashioned unrequited lust.
It is a delicate task to maintain the balance between art and artifice, especially in such a highly fragmented and (de)constructed text such as this one. Mahomed, hoever, tiptoes on this razor wire with aplomb. While giving his readers, and the world, the finger.
It is that very youth, however, that is quite likely to irritate as many readers as it intrigues. The dissipated 20-somethings in Stuff are so desperately in search of the (missing) link between meaning and pleasure that the reader often just wants to slap them upside the head and tell them to just fucking get a life.
Here we have a troika of characters – Lee, Laika and Lucy – with the narrative viewpoint jumping between all three, often unannounced. The text is full of strikethroughs to indicate a ‘work in progress’ (often the full meaning is only apparent through what has been elided, which is a neat trick).
Mahomed sure has enough neat tricks up his sleeve to make Stuff a literary poster child for postmodernism. I frowned a bit when the narrator told me to fuck off, but some of the ‘stuff’ going on here is to disrupt the traditional relationship between reader and author. This is a bit tricky, as all the reader has to do is close the book, whereafter the author is literally fucked, despite his so-cool-that-it-burns savoir faire.
Mahomed, however, makes us fall quite madly in love with Lucy and her epic quest for cosmic interconnectedness (which leads to the mysterious drug of the title, which is like having the internet in your head, only better. I am unsure if that is a recommendation, actually.)
There are some telling references to living in the shadow of the fallen towers of 9/11, and some bitter commentary on the failure of youth culture, from hippies to grunge. There is also melancholy and sadness here, and some good old-fashioned unrequited lust.
It is a delicate task to maintain the balance between art and artifice, especially in such a highly fragmented and (de)constructed text such as this one. Mahomed, hoever, tiptoes on this razor wire with aplomb. While giving his readers, and the world, the finger.
May 15, 2025
God, this one of the toughest books I’ve ever had to read. It so perfectly captures that post-university blues for creative students when you think against all odds and probabilities, you are just gonna get lucky and make it without really putting in the effort. That probably reveals too much about myself but given how real this feels, it is nice to know at least one other person feels the same. It is an incredibly well-written book that, despite all of the confusing elements and how experimental it is with various techniques that make the book feel on the precipice of insanity it is very good at forcing you to come to a reading of what is going on rather than just ending up a distorted mess of noise. There is this is internal logic to the presentation that is fascinating to see unfold and try to piece together for yourself. It is truly an incredible piece of work.
This book is, by and large, critically bulletproof because any flaws you level against it can be argued as (and likely are) intentional in highlighting the flaws of the protagonist. For instance, the fact that it is overly referential and spends such a great deal of time explaining those references can get annoying, but at the same time, that does capture how someone desperate for a sense of kinship and connection would act. However, even with that so as much as i do love this i think it could push itself a bit further. Like there are parts of this book where it plays with being a choose your adventure story and thats a fascinating idea that I wish was played with a bit more. But besides a few more minor aspects that feel similarly underdeveloped this book has no other flaws. A tough read but certainly worth it and it doesn’t just use its tougher aspects without cause. It is a purposeful moving deconstruction of love and identity and the conflicting want for community and isolation at the same time and many, many more of the contradictions that make us human. 9/10 Stefan Mohammed does it again.
This book is, by and large, critically bulletproof because any flaws you level against it can be argued as (and likely are) intentional in highlighting the flaws of the protagonist. For instance, the fact that it is overly referential and spends such a great deal of time explaining those references can get annoying, but at the same time, that does capture how someone desperate for a sense of kinship and connection would act. However, even with that so as much as i do love this i think it could push itself a bit further. Like there are parts of this book where it plays with being a choose your adventure story and thats a fascinating idea that I wish was played with a bit more. But besides a few more minor aspects that feel similarly underdeveloped this book has no other flaws. A tough read but certainly worth it and it doesn’t just use its tougher aspects without cause. It is a purposeful moving deconstruction of love and identity and the conflicting want for community and isolation at the same time and many, many more of the contradictions that make us human. 9/10 Stefan Mohammed does it again.
July 19, 2016
Read a few years back so not fresh enough for a microscope's eye but the lasting impression was one of the most trippy, nebulous reads I have ever enjoyed. The book revolves around three friends, their 'stuff' and increasingly overlapping trains of thought but it is the execution of pure writing style that makes this read like tucking in for an amazing yet eerie concert. Reading this book is to be gifted a mental experience. I read from cover to cover in one sitting and would love for others to do the same simply to discuss the trip.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews