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Girl Balancing & Other Stories
Haunting, uplifting, the final work from Helen Dunmore
Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their
A girl alone , stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems.
Two women from very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship.
A young man picks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life.
A woman imprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way.
This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore’s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her readers.
Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their
A girl alone , stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems.
Two women from very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship.
A young man picks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life.
A woman imprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way.
This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore’s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her readers.
400 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2019
41 people are currently reading
363 people want to read
About the author
Helen Dunmore
117 books970 followersI was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
July 28, 2025
I discovered this while browsing eAudiobooks on Borrowbox courtesy of my library. Narrators include: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Emilia Fox, Juliet Stevenson.
A thoughtful foreword written and read by Helen Dunmore’s son Patrick Charnley serves as an explanation and introduction.
Charnley writes warmly about the process of selecting and reviewing the stories for the collection and shares that, “Throughout my mother’s writing life I always anticipated the next work, which she would give to me as a finished manuscript, or proof copy, or simply as an email poem or short story. When I read her final novel in manuscript I thought, as I finished the last page, that I would never get to read new work from my mother again. Then, as I read these stories, here was that feeling, the pleasure of discovering something new.”
What follows is a wonderful collection of inventive stories full to the brim with her wit and wisdom.
The Nina Stories (the first four stories in the collection include Nina)
Cradling – is about Nina's parents caring for her through earache. Her father tenderly sings to her.
The Towel – Nina moves into a boarding house, her room is at the top of the house, and she must share a bathroom with the other tenants. There are a lot of house rules, and the landlady remonstrates with her when she dares to cook a fragrant curry in her room.
The White Horse – Nina must learn to live on her meagre budget and negotiate relationships as a newly independent adult.
Girl, Balancing – First lines: “The wardrobe was sticky black as if someone had tried to polish it with cough mixture. Nina looked inside and racks of old lady clothes bulged into the room. She shoved them back, forced the door shut and locked it with the rusty little key. She’d picked the wrong room.” How intriguing!
What follows is an episode in the life of a young woman who is learning to navigate adult relationships and trust her instincts. The sense of menace at one point was palpable. I loved how the descriptions of nature such as, “The sea lay flat as if a huge hand had stroked it in the night.”
The Present – This story gazes into the past through a portrait of John Donne, “It’s 1595, a date which I know well I’ve studied your period, and I dress you in my rags of knowledge.”
Esther to Fanny – “An orphan is a child with a destiny.” This story explores the doctor patient relationship and the different ways we approach illness both past and present.
Where I Keep My Faith – Begins: “When we were children and our badness jumped out of our hidden hearts and showed itself in bold words Grandpa would raise himself from his chair.”
A Thousand Roses – Is a story about trust.
Hamid in the Playhouse – When the anti-terrorist squad invades her neighborhood looking for one of her neighbors what does a grandma do, and whom does she trust?
Whales and Seals – Begins: “Drifting on the Pacific Ocean, without the noise of the engine it’s clear how fragile we are, just a speck of metal and flesh in a wilderness of water.”
All Those Personal Survival Medals – “It’s the spring, people think they are glad about spring, but really they want to stay wrapped up in winter.”
A Night Out – Learning to live after the death a life partner. A story of friendship.
Portrait of Auntie Binbag, with Ribbons – “She gets dressed with her eyes tight shut. She feels around in the wardrobe until she finds something.” She is her own person. Her family underestimate her.
About the First World War – 100th Birthday celebration.
A View from the Observatory – This story has a sense of menace about it.
Count From the Splash – Family dynamics change as the children become teenagers.
In China This Would Not Happen – The author keeps us guessing about the protagonist, “Do you believe that I am who I say I am? Forty-ish, reasonably kindly, observant as you have to be in my job and a little world weary.” There is darkness in this tale.
A Very Fine House – What will you do to get what you want?
Duty Free – “We were at home again in the kingdom of our preferences.”
Chocolate For Later – Is about the illusion that a woman creates as she travels first class.
The Medina – Begins: “The Medina is like a dream, you never know what you will find here, all the things you have lost.”
Wolves of Memory – Playing hooky from school.
The Musicians of Ingo – Digory has a musical gift. However, he says, “I don’t want to play if the sea isn’t there to listen.”
Frost at Midnight – Begins: “Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, whose gentle breathing’s, heard in this deep calm, fill up the intersperséd vacancies and momentary pauses of the thought!” from the poem, Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The Past – A World War II romance that stirs hatred.
Protection – I remember being warned against getting two puppies at the same time as they would bond with each other rather than me, so I was interested to read about the twins in this story, “What nobody said, and nobody seemed to know was the loneliness of having them. […] Every time you come into their bedroom you think you’re interrupting something. It’s like living with a newly married couple who are perfectly polite but have no real interest in anyone but themselves.”
A Silver Cigar in the Sky – This story builds from the sighting of an airship, aka zeppelin, or “air whale” over Bristol.
Dancers Feet – A dancer and a tutor meet on a ferry in late summer.
With Shackleton – Regarding a rather outspoken and tactless mother-in-law - “Perhaps one day a manhole would be left uncovered, and Josephine Kendal would step on to nothing with her usual splendid self-assurance and plunge fathoms deep into the sewers of London.”
At the Institute with KM – Remediating PTSD.
Grace Poole, Her Testimony – Grace Poole is a character in the classic novel Jane Eyre. This story is told from her point of view as Bertha Rochester’s carer and includes what she thinks of the other members of the household.
The Landlubbers Lying Down Below – Scipio is a page who plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. Now that Scipio is eleven he is no longer so appealing, and his owner refers to him as a ‘hobbledyhoy’ – a gawky adolescent youth. Scipio meets the child prodigy Mozart aka Wolfie at a concert and his life is changed.
Writ in Water – About Keat’s death in Rome. “The noise of the fountain. The sound of a pencil moving. His breath. A long, dragging pause. Another breath. You can live an entire life between one breath and the next. That's where my life was spent, in one night, in one room. The rest is memory.”
A thoughtful foreword written and read by Helen Dunmore’s son Patrick Charnley serves as an explanation and introduction.
Charnley writes warmly about the process of selecting and reviewing the stories for the collection and shares that, “Throughout my mother’s writing life I always anticipated the next work, which she would give to me as a finished manuscript, or proof copy, or simply as an email poem or short story. When I read her final novel in manuscript I thought, as I finished the last page, that I would never get to read new work from my mother again. Then, as I read these stories, here was that feeling, the pleasure of discovering something new.”
What follows is a wonderful collection of inventive stories full to the brim with her wit and wisdom.
The Nina Stories (the first four stories in the collection include Nina)
Cradling – is about Nina's parents caring for her through earache. Her father tenderly sings to her.
The Towel – Nina moves into a boarding house, her room is at the top of the house, and she must share a bathroom with the other tenants. There are a lot of house rules, and the landlady remonstrates with her when she dares to cook a fragrant curry in her room.
The White Horse – Nina must learn to live on her meagre budget and negotiate relationships as a newly independent adult.
Girl, Balancing – First lines: “The wardrobe was sticky black as if someone had tried to polish it with cough mixture. Nina looked inside and racks of old lady clothes bulged into the room. She shoved them back, forced the door shut and locked it with the rusty little key. She’d picked the wrong room.” How intriguing!
What follows is an episode in the life of a young woman who is learning to navigate adult relationships and trust her instincts. The sense of menace at one point was palpable. I loved how the descriptions of nature such as, “The sea lay flat as if a huge hand had stroked it in the night.”
The Present – This story gazes into the past through a portrait of John Donne, “It’s 1595, a date which I know well I’ve studied your period, and I dress you in my rags of knowledge.”
Esther to Fanny – “An orphan is a child with a destiny.” This story explores the doctor patient relationship and the different ways we approach illness both past and present.
Where I Keep My Faith – Begins: “When we were children and our badness jumped out of our hidden hearts and showed itself in bold words Grandpa would raise himself from his chair.”
A Thousand Roses – Is a story about trust.
Hamid in the Playhouse – When the anti-terrorist squad invades her neighborhood looking for one of her neighbors what does a grandma do, and whom does she trust?
Whales and Seals – Begins: “Drifting on the Pacific Ocean, without the noise of the engine it’s clear how fragile we are, just a speck of metal and flesh in a wilderness of water.”
All Those Personal Survival Medals – “It’s the spring, people think they are glad about spring, but really they want to stay wrapped up in winter.”
A Night Out – Learning to live after the death a life partner. A story of friendship.
Portrait of Auntie Binbag, with Ribbons – “She gets dressed with her eyes tight shut. She feels around in the wardrobe until she finds something.” She is her own person. Her family underestimate her.
About the First World War – 100th Birthday celebration.
A View from the Observatory – This story has a sense of menace about it.
Count From the Splash – Family dynamics change as the children become teenagers.
In China This Would Not Happen – The author keeps us guessing about the protagonist, “Do you believe that I am who I say I am? Forty-ish, reasonably kindly, observant as you have to be in my job and a little world weary.” There is darkness in this tale.
A Very Fine House – What will you do to get what you want?
Duty Free – “We were at home again in the kingdom of our preferences.”
Chocolate For Later – Is about the illusion that a woman creates as she travels first class.
The Medina – Begins: “The Medina is like a dream, you never know what you will find here, all the things you have lost.”
Wolves of Memory – Playing hooky from school.
The Musicians of Ingo – Digory has a musical gift. However, he says, “I don’t want to play if the sea isn’t there to listen.”
Frost at Midnight – Begins: “Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, whose gentle breathing’s, heard in this deep calm, fill up the intersperséd vacancies and momentary pauses of the thought!” from the poem, Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The Past – A World War II romance that stirs hatred.
Protection – I remember being warned against getting two puppies at the same time as they would bond with each other rather than me, so I was interested to read about the twins in this story, “What nobody said, and nobody seemed to know was the loneliness of having them. […] Every time you come into their bedroom you think you’re interrupting something. It’s like living with a newly married couple who are perfectly polite but have no real interest in anyone but themselves.”
A Silver Cigar in the Sky – This story builds from the sighting of an airship, aka zeppelin, or “air whale” over Bristol.
Dancers Feet – A dancer and a tutor meet on a ferry in late summer.
With Shackleton – Regarding a rather outspoken and tactless mother-in-law - “Perhaps one day a manhole would be left uncovered, and Josephine Kendal would step on to nothing with her usual splendid self-assurance and plunge fathoms deep into the sewers of London.”
At the Institute with KM – Remediating PTSD.
Grace Poole, Her Testimony – Grace Poole is a character in the classic novel Jane Eyre. This story is told from her point of view as Bertha Rochester’s carer and includes what she thinks of the other members of the household.
The Landlubbers Lying Down Below – Scipio is a page who plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. Now that Scipio is eleven he is no longer so appealing, and his owner refers to him as a ‘hobbledyhoy’ – a gawky adolescent youth. Scipio meets the child prodigy Mozart aka Wolfie at a concert and his life is changed.
Writ in Water – About Keat’s death in Rome. “The noise of the fountain. The sound of a pencil moving. His breath. A long, dragging pause. Another breath. You can live an entire life between one breath and the next. That's where my life was spent, in one night, in one room. The rest is memory.”
February 8, 2019
I was deeply saddened when I first heard that Helen Dunmore had passed away. I had read 2 of her books. It brings me such pleasure to be able to read the short story collection, which we do have Helen's family to thank for putting these stories together for one last book, and of course Helen Dunmore's publisher Selina Walker. My most moving story was the Nina stories. I related to Nina as she had trouble with her ears and so did I as a young child I had an ear infection with wax pouring down the side of my face, which left me slightly deaf in one ear.
January 13, 2020
I didn’t particularly enjoy this collection of stories. None of them really stood out to me as anything special or interesting and some of them particularly grated on me. I am a big fan of short stories, and these were pretty average. I assume she must have written some excellent books, or this collection would probably not have been published.
January 4, 2020
Hits and misses, in this collection. I was ready to like them all, but some were just lacking. I'll dip back in, at some point, I may feel differently.
April 20, 2020
I've been a big fan of Helen Dunmore since reading 'Birdcage Walk' a couple of years ago. Her untimely death is a constant source of sadness for me as a reader; that such an evocative writer should pass whilst obviously having so much to give. And that seems to have been the sentiment behind 'Girl, Balancing', published posthumously by her son Patrick Charnley in 2018, as was one of her final wishes.
The stories here often capture Dunmore at the extent of her wisdom, and her ability to capture human emotion, adaptability and in particular, feminine independence. It opens with 'The Nina Stories' (which reportedly may have gone on to comprise an entire novel one day), and they find Dunmore at her most expressive; full of vivid imagery, richness in description and a tense, uneasy coming-of-age narrative thread, combining discomfort, youth and dread brilliantly.
Elsewhere, highlights revolve around Dunmore's bottomless connection with humanity, and specifically the notion of women taking the reigns of their own potential - as characters and in life more widely. They can take either fairly straightforward plot devices and make drama-laden situations reflect the character's nuance, as on 'A View from the Observatory'. Or they can reflect her own, inward facing emotions and use real-life references to extend allegories, like in the beautiful 'Esther to Fanny'.
On the negative side, some of them don't amount to much, or struggle to give us a real way in. Occasionally, Dunmore's writing suffers from being painfully Middle England - referential pieces like 'Taken In Shadows' and 'Grace Poole Her Testimony' probably won't resonate with anyone who didn't study an English Literature BA. But that same narrow perspective is at its most alarming on 'A Thousand Roses', which takes the very real fear of terrorism and applies literally none of the nuance, depth or intricacy that writing on that topic requires.
If you're a fan of Dunmore, this is a no brainer. Often captivating, always easy to read and beautifully paced, it's a capsule of the wondrous talent that shone so brightly in her novels.
The stories here often capture Dunmore at the extent of her wisdom, and her ability to capture human emotion, adaptability and in particular, feminine independence. It opens with 'The Nina Stories' (which reportedly may have gone on to comprise an entire novel one day), and they find Dunmore at her most expressive; full of vivid imagery, richness in description and a tense, uneasy coming-of-age narrative thread, combining discomfort, youth and dread brilliantly.
Elsewhere, highlights revolve around Dunmore's bottomless connection with humanity, and specifically the notion of women taking the reigns of their own potential - as characters and in life more widely. They can take either fairly straightforward plot devices and make drama-laden situations reflect the character's nuance, as on 'A View from the Observatory'. Or they can reflect her own, inward facing emotions and use real-life references to extend allegories, like in the beautiful 'Esther to Fanny'.
On the negative side, some of them don't amount to much, or struggle to give us a real way in. Occasionally, Dunmore's writing suffers from being painfully Middle England - referential pieces like 'Taken In Shadows' and 'Grace Poole Her Testimony' probably won't resonate with anyone who didn't study an English Literature BA. But that same narrow perspective is at its most alarming on 'A Thousand Roses', which takes the very real fear of terrorism and applies literally none of the nuance, depth or intricacy that writing on that topic requires.
If you're a fan of Dunmore, this is a no brainer. Often captivating, always easy to read and beautifully paced, it's a capsule of the wondrous talent that shone so brightly in her novels.
March 11, 2019
A wonderful collection
April 10, 2020
A collection of very different short stories, some quiet and thoughtful, others funny and playful and some that are strange and unsettling.
May 5, 2019
Many stories beautifully written. Some a little weak but some are strong. She's such a wonderful writer, sorely missed.
More like 3.5 stars for me rounded up.
More like 3.5 stars for me rounded up.
November 15, 2018
This posthumous collection of previously unpublished stories by Helen Dunmore provided me with great pleasure, tinged with the sadness of knowing that nothing more will flow from the pen of this wonderful British writer. I could always rely on Dunmore to reveal the mysteries of the human heart and to transport me to other times and places. Her two novels set in Russia (The Siege and The Betrayal) remain my favourites.
This set of stories was put together by her son and Dunmore's publisher, with only minor edits. Although the stories were written over a number of years (my only regret was not knowing precisely when), Dunmore had indicated that she thought them worth publishing after her death. They certainly were!
My favourites were the title story (Girl Balancing) which captures perfectly the moment a young girl emerges into womanhood and those that take an original slant on figures from history - John Donne and Mary Shelley and from fiction - Grace Poole (Jane Eyre). The prose is often gentle and tender but can suddenly change to become stark, especially in Rose, 1944 where Rose falls in love with a black American soldier and they are subjected to vicious racism.
Some quotes:
John Donne's dead child: "Mary's first words drifted around your house like feathers."
Memories from a political (religious) prisoner: "When we were children and our badness jumped out of our hidden hearts and showed itself in bold words, Grandpa would raise himself from his chair. His shadow would fill the doorway as he went into the years to cut a switch... I would start down to see if my sadness was flickering away across the dust like a snake."
"My grandma liked to stroke the curve of my cheek with her finger. She told me that I was like her garden after rain had fallen on it, because I was young."
Rose, 1944: "... when Frederick walks towards her, all fine and supple with life, she can't turn aside from the thought of the death he's kitted out for."
I'm glad I have these stories on my Kindle for I shall certainly return to them another time.
This set of stories was put together by her son and Dunmore's publisher, with only minor edits. Although the stories were written over a number of years (my only regret was not knowing precisely when), Dunmore had indicated that she thought them worth publishing after her death. They certainly were!
My favourites were the title story (Girl Balancing) which captures perfectly the moment a young girl emerges into womanhood and those that take an original slant on figures from history - John Donne and Mary Shelley and from fiction - Grace Poole (Jane Eyre). The prose is often gentle and tender but can suddenly change to become stark, especially in Rose, 1944 where Rose falls in love with a black American soldier and they are subjected to vicious racism.
Some quotes:
John Donne's dead child: "Mary's first words drifted around your house like feathers."
Memories from a political (religious) prisoner: "When we were children and our badness jumped out of our hidden hearts and showed itself in bold words, Grandpa would raise himself from his chair. His shadow would fill the doorway as he went into the years to cut a switch... I would start down to see if my sadness was flickering away across the dust like a snake."
"My grandma liked to stroke the curve of my cheek with her finger. She told me that I was like her garden after rain had fallen on it, because I was young."
Rose, 1944: "... when Frederick walks towards her, all fine and supple with life, she can't turn aside from the thought of the death he's kitted out for."
I'm glad I have these stories on my Kindle for I shall certainly return to them another time.
October 27, 2018
Dunmore's way of writing is a soft pillow you plunge your head in. She has a quiet way of telling stories. Really strong things are happening, but you don't realize at first glance because the emphasis is put on the person living it, the person who is talking. One enjoyable thing is that each person as a way of writing which corresponds perfectly to his personnality, it's as if were in their flow of thoughts.
I red this to get a glimpse of the life of humans from the past centuries, not with facts but through stories. It's not the best book of Dunmore's for that, but I have no regret as passing from one glimpse of life to another was a really enjoyable experience. I think The Siege would be more adapted to that purpose. In this book, there are stories happening in the past but they don't differ from recent stories. People don't change, only the circumstances and these circumstances don't change much more through the centuries than they do when you get from the life of a sick person dying watching the cows to the life of a slave.
I highly recommend you this unique author.
I red this to get a glimpse of the life of humans from the past centuries, not with facts but through stories. It's not the best book of Dunmore's for that, but I have no regret as passing from one glimpse of life to another was a really enjoyable experience. I think The Siege would be more adapted to that purpose. In this book, there are stories happening in the past but they don't differ from recent stories. People don't change, only the circumstances and these circumstances don't change much more through the centuries than they do when you get from the life of a sick person dying watching the cows to the life of a slave.
I highly recommend you this unique author.
May 31, 2018
3.5* overall. Some exception storytelling, I particularly loved the Nina stories, but I found myself wanting more of some & less of others.
December 4, 2018
Not Dunmore's finest work ... I closed the book feeling a bit empty.
May 12, 2021
Read for book club. Good collection of short stories which seem to be connected by themes of family, relationships, love and loss.
August 21, 2024
3.5 stars.
I love Helen Dunmore’s writing and was saddened by her passing. I bought Girl, Balancing while in the mood for some short stories and looked forward to an engaging read.
Perhaps the decision to publish this set of three collections in one book was unwise, as to be honest the quality of the stories is variable. I wasn’t keen on the Nina collection though other reviewers rate them highly. The Present contains some gems, but many of the stories felt too short (even for this genre). I particularly liked Frost at Midnight (though bizarrely the baby’s gender is incorrect in all bookseller summaries), About The First World War, Portrait of Auntie Binbag and the disturbing A Very Fine House. The collection entitled The Past was well written quite though hard to follow if you didn’t know the famous literary figures portrayed in some of the stories.
The book is a great concept but its execution didn’t quite work for me.
I love Helen Dunmore’s writing and was saddened by her passing. I bought Girl, Balancing while in the mood for some short stories and looked forward to an engaging read.
Perhaps the decision to publish this set of three collections in one book was unwise, as to be honest the quality of the stories is variable. I wasn’t keen on the Nina collection though other reviewers rate them highly. The Present contains some gems, but many of the stories felt too short (even for this genre). I particularly liked Frost at Midnight (though bizarrely the baby’s gender is incorrect in all bookseller summaries), About The First World War, Portrait of Auntie Binbag and the disturbing A Very Fine House. The collection entitled The Past was well written quite though hard to follow if you didn’t know the famous literary figures portrayed in some of the stories.
The book is a great concept but its execution didn’t quite work for me.
April 9, 2025
This collection of short stories begins with a sad and moving foreword by the author's daughter about how it came about as part of tying up her late mother's affairs.
It is something of a mixed bag, with Dunmore's style being subtle to the point of being virtually non-existent at times. It would be a stretch to call some of these pieces stories as there is sometimes little to no narrative and a sequence of events happens that has no obvious point or meaning.
That said, I did warm to the collection as a whole and liked a number of sections. The woman learning surprising things about her Bohemian mother second hand after her death, the suburbanite who bonds with her neighbour via garden camping, the house buyer who refuses to give up her dream.
It is something of a mixed bag, with Dunmore's style being subtle to the point of being virtually non-existent at times. It would be a stretch to call some of these pieces stories as there is sometimes little to no narrative and a sequence of events happens that has no obvious point or meaning.
That said, I did warm to the collection as a whole and liked a number of sections. The woman learning surprising things about her Bohemian mother second hand after her death, the suburbanite who bonds with her neighbour via garden camping, the house buyer who refuses to give up her dream.
May 27, 2020
More than 30 short stories published after the death of this brilliant writer are, in the end, an uneven set. Some are very short, just a few pages, whilst others are a lot longer (between 20 and 30 pages). I much preferred the earlier ones. "Taken in Shadows" is a portrait of John Donne that is eloquently imagined. Others are quite unnerving, a prisoner in one and an almost drowning in another. I loved "A Night Out" with Ruth and Aruna. However the stories of the final third of the book go under the title of "THE PAST", and these I found generally tedious. But they do not detract from the superb earlier collections.
May 20, 2024
A posthumous compilation by relatives, of many of Helen Dunmore’s short stories, most of which were unpublished previously.
I found myself quite ambivalent about this book. Some of the stories I found intriguing and quite compelling. Unfortunately others I thought seemed unfinished or unedited and some rather repetitive, as if the author was trying out the same characters/story in a slightly different vein, but the stories had all been brought together in a heap.
I think I would have preferred a novel previously published by the author and this book took me a long time to get through because it was very putdownable. I read it on and off whilst reading other books I preferred.
I found myself quite ambivalent about this book. Some of the stories I found intriguing and quite compelling. Unfortunately others I thought seemed unfinished or unedited and some rather repetitive, as if the author was trying out the same characters/story in a slightly different vein, but the stories had all been brought together in a heap.
I think I would have preferred a novel previously published by the author and this book took me a long time to get through because it was very putdownable. I read it on and off whilst reading other books I preferred.
June 14, 2020
I liked these, certainly. Several of them a great deal but whether it was the almost-always problem of reading an anthology from cover to cover, rather than managing to at least dovetail (ideally with more than one other collection of another write), or that the ordering of them led to too many similar ones being grouped together for reasons of chronology, I ended somewhat underwhelmed.
Obviously, I will pick it up and re-read, on a more pick and choose basis, and perhaps it is because, as a novelist, Helen Dunmore is generally so superb this did not satisfy as much as I hoped.
Obviously, I will pick it up and re-read, on a more pick and choose basis, and perhaps it is because, as a novelist, Helen Dunmore is generally so superb this did not satisfy as much as I hoped.
July 22, 2018
A well-written and interesting collection of short stories, written throughout the author's career but now brought together posthumously by her family with her prior agreement. Some of these stories have never been published before or have only appeared in newspaper columns. A couple I found a bit hard to grasp but really enjoyed the majority. One in particular, 'Grace Poole: Her Testimony', casts an interesting angle on the character of Jane Eyre! 8/10.
June 10, 2019
I really like Helen Dunmore, but not really a fan of short stories, which is why I gave this posthumously printed book only three stars. That being said, there are some real gems here, like the 100 year old woman with dementia who does not realise that her visitor is her great-nephew; the islanders who have a musical prodigy amidst them who can also conjure up the music of all the islanders before in a huge concert; plus the beautifully titled Auntie Binbag with Ribbons.
April 12, 2023
An amazing find. This book was a gift which I kept on the shelf for a couple of years having opened it once and struggled with it. Having nothing left to read, I retried it and was gripped. Dunmore was principally a poet and it shows in her eloquent penmanship. Each of these stories holds the potential to be a novel, but (and I’m a big fan of the genre) as short stories, they excel. Little moments captured in palpably real fragments. Highly recommended.
January 18, 2024
I liked the stories, they were interestingly done and the different time periods and perspectives. I think for me there’s just a flaw with the short story genre that when I start getting really embedded into the story and woven into the world, the author will tend to be like BUT HERE’S A TWIST and then the story ends.
June 5, 2019
Tight, taut stories. They have a brevity that is refreshing, each one expertly constructed to feel quick and yet very complete. They brim with emotion - often restrained and implied, but nonetheless brimming.
This is the first Dunmore prose I have read, and I’m most impressed.
This is the first Dunmore prose I have read, and I’m most impressed.
July 31, 2019
I still have Helen Dunmore's Your Blue Eyed Boy and Zennor in Darkness and it is sad to think that this is another favourite author whose books I can no longer read. This is a posthumous collection and has some little gems. Worth a read especially if you are a fan of hers as I am.
November 29, 2019
Der er mange alene-personer i Helen Dunmores univers. Mange af historierne blev hos mig efter jeg havde læst dem. Idlr “Dutyfree” om soldater der sendes i krig, “The medina” og “Chocolate for Later”
Hendes skrivestil minder mig lidt om Alice Munro.
Hendes skrivestil minder mig lidt om Alice Munro.
June 19, 2020
The first section, 'Girl,Balancing' and the last section, 'The Past' are the best. In the middle section there are a few slightly weaker stories.
Overall they are brilliant investifgations of ideas about aspects of humanity, with convincing empathy and great positive warmth.
Overall they are brilliant investifgations of ideas about aspects of humanity, with convincing empathy and great positive warmth.
September 7, 2020
My first book from Helen Dunmore and I enjoyed it. I am used to read short stories book and I have to say that I liked it and I am thinking to read more book like that. Overall the stories were enjoyable and very well written.
May 22, 2023
Helen Dunmore is my favourite author. I found this collection of short stories wonderful, and so bittersweet. Very grateful for her family for putting it together and publishing it posthumously. I can’t help but think of how all the stories she had left to tell. Highly recommend.
June 5, 2024
Beautifully written vignettes. Short stories are so rarely outstanding as how do you get character, plot, setting, mood, emotion, all across naturally in a few short pages? With ease if you're Helen Dunmore.
April 5, 2019
Some brilliant short stories, a few I couldn’t relate to, but overall excellent. So sad Helen Dunmore died. I loved the Grace Poole story, the Nina stories and The Musicians of Ingo in particular.
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