Underwords: The Hidden City

by Maggie Hamand, Nicola Barker, Andrea Levy

This is the sixth anthology of new writing to result from the biennial London New Writing Competition, on the theme of Hidden London. This collection will feature the six winning new stories submitted by previously unpublished Londoners, together with new work by prominent London authors including Diran Adebayo, Nicola Barker, Romesh Gunesekera, Hanif Kureishi, Sarah Hall and Andrea Levy.

199 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story compilations from a variety of authors are difficult to grade on two levels, firstly, due to the very nature of the widely differing styles each author brings to the collection, some stories will click with the reader while others will just clunk and secondly the age old question must be answered 'Is the value of the whole greater than the sum of its parts?'.

I had given each of the 14 stories an individual rating, most were '3 stars' (i.e. "ok, but would probably forget about them within a year"), a few were '2' ("not my cup of tea"), a few were '4' ("memorable, albeit due to the style being reminiscent of Conrad or Woolf") and one was a '5'. Overall, this gave a '3 star' rating.

Now, did the collection combine to evoke a 'hidden London'? Well, it certainly evoked many hidden aspects of human life although it was largely independant whether these lives were urban or rural; so no bonus star here I'm afraid.

Having given the book to a friend, I await his verdict with interest.

[Ugh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Are these stories about hidden sides to London? No. At least not the three that I could bring myself to read before deciding to throw the book in the bin, because those three weren't about anything. I would have given the book to someone else instead of just throwing it away, but honestly, I don't know anybody I hate that much...

[Mrs Reddy Katzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not only does this "Diabolical" book have the cheek to state £9.99 on the back (which i did not pay for thank goodness) but my specific copy has been misprinted so that 20 odd pages are missing, which makes at least three stories missing but it also has two stories re'printed in it twice ... The worst bit however is it doesnt have the Author in it that i bought the bloomin' book for in the first place :-(

[Sugar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok. Some stories were just blah.