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Deleted Scenes for Lovers
"The knowledge of everyone they’re about to hurt is not an element easy to breathe in. They’re the lovers. You can blame them now, if you want to. That’s your choice: this is the director’s cut."Seventeen powerful stories of contemporary New Zealand life from a writer whose penetrating gaze reveals the full experience of her characters' lives—tragic, comic, rich.
- GenresShort StoriesPoetry
229 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2016
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June 26, 2018– Deleted scenes for lovers is just exquisite. –
“I had sex with a hitchhiker down on the beach, because I couldn’t bear to take him in the caravan.”
When I started handselling deleted scenes for lovers to customers at the independent bookstore I manage, I would describe the opening story of Tracey Slaughter’s shortfiction collection to customers by excitedly saying, “well, there’s this woman sleeping in the caravan that her partner committed suicide in…”
Suicide? Short Stories? Enough to put off a reader exploring any further! However, the first story, notes left on a window, is unexpectedly heartwarming and sets a strong tone for the rest of the collection. Set mostly in a caravan park, the unnamed woman leading character draws on memories of her late partner as well as modestly interacting with the park’s elderly woman custodian, who found his body. Their gentle communication is beautifully expressed by the woman’s description of the custodian,“I would have reached out and touched the ridges of her cheek or knuckles, the streaks of scalp that shone through her hair, but she was too spry.”
Slaughter was one of the first authors I turned to in a conscious endeavor to read more New Zealand fiction. Her characters are from those ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ small towns. Towns ventured to for Trade Me pick-ups, greasy fish and chip shops and spattered with New Zealand iconic ‘longest drink in town’ milkshake logos. To me, the stories immediately felt familiar while also feeling like something I’ve never read before. deleted scenes for lovers has a gothic tone, that adds sly black humor to the rich character detail, but with a voice that’s distinctly written by a woman. In fact, the Hawera woman who was recently charged with distributing nude pictures of her husband’s lover feels like she could be a character in deleted scenes for lovers.
As a reader, I was plonked into each the middle of each scene in a way that felt like the story would have unfolded whether I was there or not. It was so visceral. There is a consistent pace from story to story. I was moved along as a quiet observer through snapshots of locations and time periods and was left to piece together what had happened before I arrived.
It’s not just this narrative structure and characters that are the driving force behind deleted scenes for lovers’ success. The writing is just exquisite. Slaughter’s lush sentences swirl over your tongue. After reading descriptions like "...his little-boy lips were like meaty petals, spit tinder and far too fucken pink", I had to immediately repeat the words aloud to someone near me. This is a familiar reaction I had whilst reading fellow Victoria University Press author, poet Hera Lindsay Bird’s collection Hera Lindsay Bird, also published in 2016.
I yearn to read more of Slaughter’s teenage characters. No story used these characters better than consent. This story resonated with me as a sadly familiar tale. It’s told purely from the young woman’s vivid and raw point of view - the yearning to be admired, the innocent inability to observe insincerity. What starts with a triple scoop orange chocolate chip ice-cream at a shop, descends into a manipulative and abusive relationship between the young woman and an older man. It’s an important story to read and reflective of a continuing conversation and growing awareness of what consent is.
Why do I love deleted scenes for lovers? Because I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s an unexpected combination of the writing style of two of my favorite authors, Steve Braunias and Miranda July. It’s the book about small town life that I’ve always wanted to read. It’s so refreshing to read New Zealand fiction like this. Also, let it be known that it’s a travesty it wasn’t shortlisted for the 2017 NZ Acorn Prize for fiction. It will be the book I buy for all of my friends.
If you read the stories all at once, this collection can feel a little one note. I recommend dipping in and out to allow each story soak into your skin.
----------
This review was first published on Narrative Muse, http://narrativemuse.co/books/deleted..., and was written by Jenna Todd. Narrative Muse curates the best books and movies by and about women and non-binary folk on our website http://narrativemuse.co and our social media channels.
“I had sex with a hitchhiker down on the beach, because I couldn’t bear to take him in the caravan.”
When I started handselling deleted scenes for lovers to customers at the independent bookstore I manage, I would describe the opening story of Tracey Slaughter’s shortfiction collection to customers by excitedly saying, “well, there’s this woman sleeping in the caravan that her partner committed suicide in…”
Suicide? Short Stories? Enough to put off a reader exploring any further! However, the first story, notes left on a window, is unexpectedly heartwarming and sets a strong tone for the rest of the collection. Set mostly in a caravan park, the unnamed woman leading character draws on memories of her late partner as well as modestly interacting with the park’s elderly woman custodian, who found his body. Their gentle communication is beautifully expressed by the woman’s description of the custodian,“I would have reached out and touched the ridges of her cheek or knuckles, the streaks of scalp that shone through her hair, but she was too spry.”
Slaughter was one of the first authors I turned to in a conscious endeavor to read more New Zealand fiction. Her characters are from those ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ small towns. Towns ventured to for Trade Me pick-ups, greasy fish and chip shops and spattered with New Zealand iconic ‘longest drink in town’ milkshake logos. To me, the stories immediately felt familiar while also feeling like something I’ve never read before. deleted scenes for lovers has a gothic tone, that adds sly black humor to the rich character detail, but with a voice that’s distinctly written by a woman. In fact, the Hawera woman who was recently charged with distributing nude pictures of her husband’s lover feels like she could be a character in deleted scenes for lovers.
As a reader, I was plonked into each the middle of each scene in a way that felt like the story would have unfolded whether I was there or not. It was so visceral. There is a consistent pace from story to story. I was moved along as a quiet observer through snapshots of locations and time periods and was left to piece together what had happened before I arrived.
It’s not just this narrative structure and characters that are the driving force behind deleted scenes for lovers’ success. The writing is just exquisite. Slaughter’s lush sentences swirl over your tongue. After reading descriptions like "...his little-boy lips were like meaty petals, spit tinder and far too fucken pink", I had to immediately repeat the words aloud to someone near me. This is a familiar reaction I had whilst reading fellow Victoria University Press author, poet Hera Lindsay Bird’s collection Hera Lindsay Bird, also published in 2016.
I yearn to read more of Slaughter’s teenage characters. No story used these characters better than consent. This story resonated with me as a sadly familiar tale. It’s told purely from the young woman’s vivid and raw point of view - the yearning to be admired, the innocent inability to observe insincerity. What starts with a triple scoop orange chocolate chip ice-cream at a shop, descends into a manipulative and abusive relationship between the young woman and an older man. It’s an important story to read and reflective of a continuing conversation and growing awareness of what consent is.
Why do I love deleted scenes for lovers? Because I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s an unexpected combination of the writing style of two of my favorite authors, Steve Braunias and Miranda July. It’s the book about small town life that I’ve always wanted to read. It’s so refreshing to read New Zealand fiction like this. Also, let it be known that it’s a travesty it wasn’t shortlisted for the 2017 NZ Acorn Prize for fiction. It will be the book I buy for all of my friends.
If you read the stories all at once, this collection can feel a little one note. I recommend dipping in and out to allow each story soak into your skin.
----------
This review was first published on Narrative Muse, http://narrativemuse.co/books/deleted..., and was written by Jenna Todd. Narrative Muse curates the best books and movies by and about women and non-binary folk on our website http://narrativemuse.co and our social media channels.
September 13, 2016
In the absence of time, this quote (which has not left me) stands in place of a review, and to illustrate Slaughter's intense, sensory writing:
"Stoned, Blake lies back in the paddock, gapes at the veering of stars. What the fuck is it with him tonight? It's the farmhouse feel of the place—might be a lifestyle block, but it still gave off that cabbage-tree, offal-pit, flannelette feel, still had the sound of windblown fence wire you could taste, that chilled tin tone that hummed along your childhood teeth. And the dark was the real dark, the dark of the farm he grew up on, homelike freezer-lid dark, that strung-up meaty blackness he'd always held his kid-breath to get through, praying that he never felt the veiny punch-bag knock, the fatty kiss as he shivered past the creaking siders of meat."—Deleted Scenes for Lovers by Tracey Slaughter, page 56.
Definitely Kiwi. Definitely brilliant.
"Stoned, Blake lies back in the paddock, gapes at the veering of stars. What the fuck is it with him tonight? It's the farmhouse feel of the place—might be a lifestyle block, but it still gave off that cabbage-tree, offal-pit, flannelette feel, still had the sound of windblown fence wire you could taste, that chilled tin tone that hummed along your childhood teeth. And the dark was the real dark, the dark of the farm he grew up on, homelike freezer-lid dark, that strung-up meaty blackness he'd always held his kid-breath to get through, praying that he never felt the veiny punch-bag knock, the fatty kiss as he shivered past the creaking siders of meat."—Deleted Scenes for Lovers by Tracey Slaughter, page 56.
Definitely Kiwi. Definitely brilliant.
January 3, 2018
This is not a book to entertain lightly. It's stories are dense and dark and demand the full attention of the reader. It is not a book you can skim or read while listening to the radio. The tightly packed sentences demand that you give your full attention or their power and weight are lost.
These seventeen stories are as raw and gritty as they come and they tell of the real, slightly down at heal, back street, rough side of town, New Zealand that we see every day. Perhaps we ignore it, pretend it isn't there or look the other way, but there is no ignoring these powerful tales.
I liked their grittyness and their realism. The rough edge of the sex which has little to do with love, but more to do with urges and needs. There is nothing sentimental in these pages, other than perhaps everyday items which are put to bad use, or commonplace items used to build a picture or an atmosphere.
To be blunt they are not my favourites, but they are good. The three stars are because they are so well crafted, and not because I really enjoyed them. As a reader I probably had to work too hard, concentrate too deeply and found that if I put the book down in mid-story, I could not be sure which piece I started reading again. There was a same-ness about the characters and the action that makes one tale blend into another. Perhaps I was at fault. These are not stories to read at Christmas and New Year, but in a gloomy winter night with a chill in the air and a few hours to hunker down and be gripped.
These seventeen stories are as raw and gritty as they come and they tell of the real, slightly down at heal, back street, rough side of town, New Zealand that we see every day. Perhaps we ignore it, pretend it isn't there or look the other way, but there is no ignoring these powerful tales.
I liked their grittyness and their realism. The rough edge of the sex which has little to do with love, but more to do with urges and needs. There is nothing sentimental in these pages, other than perhaps everyday items which are put to bad use, or commonplace items used to build a picture or an atmosphere.
To be blunt they are not my favourites, but they are good. The three stars are because they are so well crafted, and not because I really enjoyed them. As a reader I probably had to work too hard, concentrate too deeply and found that if I put the book down in mid-story, I could not be sure which piece I started reading again. There was a same-ness about the characters and the action that makes one tale blend into another. Perhaps I was at fault. These are not stories to read at Christmas and New Year, but in a gloomy winter night with a chill in the air and a few hours to hunker down and be gripped.
June 17, 2017
Slaughter’s powers seem to lie in darkness and description, she possesses a gift for elevating the most mundane of objects, settings or situations into something intimate, profound or disturbing and in some cases all three. She forages and unearths some murky human truths, and she does so with a chilling accuracy. In some sense many of these stories are like coming across a collection of blurry snapshots that you can’t quite decipher and then there are others where her lean, but punchy prose put me in mind of the likes of Lorrie Moore and Muriel Spark who explore similar dark, psychological waters.
October 6, 2016
Love ya' Tracey! Wanted to give it five stars, but some stories simply worked better for me than others. They were all great, of course. But some were STUNNING.
Some felt like they could be better - I only say that because it is so frustrating to see something that could be better than it is, with just a little more time spent on it.
Whatever. They are incredible, essential, and thoroughly not of the mainstream discourse. You shape that shit, my girl. Keep shaping it. Love your work. Love your writing advice. Whenever I see you speak, you speak volumes.
Some felt like they could be better - I only say that because it is so frustrating to see something that could be better than it is, with just a little more time spent on it.
Whatever. They are incredible, essential, and thoroughly not of the mainstream discourse. You shape that shit, my girl. Keep shaping it. Love your work. Love your writing advice. Whenever I see you speak, you speak volumes.
November 1, 2018
God how I love intimate books.
This is series of intimate scenes that give you the hint, the smell and the sound of another's life.
It is so private and personal it feels like betrayal to even talk about it.
This is series of intimate scenes that give you the hint, the smell and the sound of another's life.
It is so private and personal it feels like betrayal to even talk about it.
March 5, 2022
I found this hard going and quite depressing. Maybe it’s just not the right time to read it for me…but all the shitty things that woman put themselves through or the shitty situations forced on them just wasn’t where I wanted to be in my head right now.
January 26, 2025
dnf. Didn't get past page 2.
I liked the cover, though!
I was put off by the crude language and act in the first paragraph and it didn't improve for me by page 2. If this is edgy fiction, fine, but it's not for me.
Call me prissy and/or old. It's ok.
I liked the cover, though!
I was put off by the crude language and act in the first paragraph and it didn't improve for me by page 2. If this is edgy fiction, fine, but it's not for me.
Call me prissy and/or old. It's ok.
October 8, 2019
Amazing and brutal. Some of the stories really challenged me, especially “Short for Sea.”
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March 25, 2020Too tough going for me - I abandoned it.
April 11, 2023
Just didn't love this collection of short stories. A few were decent but overall I didn't really get into them, and they all were a bit too similar in tone and vibe to enjoy starting the next one.
June 18, 2023
top three stories (in no particular order):
1. note left on a window
2. scenes of a long-term nature
3. consent
1. note left on a window
2. scenes of a long-term nature
3. consent
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December 28, 2019An incredible collection of short stories, each with a novel's worth of ideas inside them. Some beg for re-reading and reward the time spent by revealing more and more secrets. Others are king hits, punching you in the head and leaving you gasping for air. Slaughter uses language as though it is itself a character. Her stories are based around tantalizing 'what ifs' that are often only fully revealed in last, loaded words. Highly recommended.
December 4, 2020
devastating.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews