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I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For
A novelist questions why she’s been shortlisted for the Prize of Prize’s Prize; an artist duo has a messy break up; a schoolgirl is saved from a predator by a flash flood and a gang of dead animals; a surgeon has an incurable identity crisis; a budding actor can’t see what’s so funny; a pregnant food writer gets a craving for luxury consumerism.
These thirteen stories by writer and literary translator Jen Calleja pick apart the hidden motivations behind our desires, and the ways we seek out distraction from difficult truths. They investigate histories, power dynamics, rituals, institutions – the roles we adopt, as well as the ones we inherit.
Known for her acclaimed poetry and translations, and as a performer in numerous bands, these facets manifest in an attention to the latent ambivalence of language, and the nature of storytelling itself. This writing is direct and considered – it asks to be read, read out loud, retold, refashioned into fables with a distinctive mouthfeel.
I’m Afraid that’s All We’ve Got Time For is a sharp, bold, inventive and prescient fictional debut from a versatile and brilliant writer.
‘Comic, inventive and surreal, I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For renders a world unfamiliar yet familiar with each bright shard of a story.’ – Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018
‘Calleja creates worlds where “there is so much space between molecules that we never really touch anyone or anything.” Reading about busses on detours, short windows opening and closing, erased identities, air kisses, blank books and books yet to be written, I felt held at arm’s length of something crucially important. Deferral and near misses are at the core of Calleja’s writing, yet this collection entirely hits the mark. I loved it.’ – Isabel Waidner, author of We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2018 & 2020
These thirteen stories by writer and literary translator Jen Calleja pick apart the hidden motivations behind our desires, and the ways we seek out distraction from difficult truths. They investigate histories, power dynamics, rituals, institutions – the roles we adopt, as well as the ones we inherit.
Known for her acclaimed poetry and translations, and as a performer in numerous bands, these facets manifest in an attention to the latent ambivalence of language, and the nature of storytelling itself. This writing is direct and considered – it asks to be read, read out loud, retold, refashioned into fables with a distinctive mouthfeel.
I’m Afraid that’s All We’ve Got Time For is a sharp, bold, inventive and prescient fictional debut from a versatile and brilliant writer.
‘Comic, inventive and surreal, I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For renders a world unfamiliar yet familiar with each bright shard of a story.’ – Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018
‘Calleja creates worlds where “there is so much space between molecules that we never really touch anyone or anything.” Reading about busses on detours, short windows opening and closing, erased identities, air kisses, blank books and books yet to be written, I felt held at arm’s length of something crucially important. Deferral and near misses are at the core of Calleja’s writing, yet this collection entirely hits the mark. I loved it.’ – Isabel Waidner, author of We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2018 & 2020
- GenresShort Stories
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 6, 2020
Jen Calleja has hitherto been best known as a translator (e.g. of the 2019 MBI shortlisted The Pine Islands), and as a poet, but this debut collection of short stories should also establish her reputation as an author of innovative fiction.
The book comes with blurbs from the author's of two of the best, and unique, books I've read in the last two years - Republic of Consciousness Prize winner Eley Williams and twice RoC Prize and Goldsmiths shortlisted Isabel Waidner, and the book belongs in similar company, and that of fellow RoC nominee David Hayden and of Carmen Maria Machado, but with a unique flavour of its own: playful but at times disturbing, anti-realist and yet recognisable.
The author's own take on her work (https://minorliteratures.com/2020/03/...
Gabriel Josipovici's in What Ever Happened to Modernism? commented that realist novels They do what they set out to do perfectly and adequately: they help tell a story and create a world and characters to inhabit that world that do not flout the laws of probability - Calleja's approach is certainly not this.
Perhaps my favourite story of all was Literary Quartet, set at the annual ceremony Prize of Prizes Prize, a brilliantly inventive and bizarre satire of literary prizes and indeed the literary industry.
Another highlight was a Town called Distraction, the story of a rather distracted journey:
I knew I would be distracted by the world. The world requests time. I’d been listening to the news on the radio before leaving and had to spring back upstairs to note down names mentioned in the broadcast to look up later on. The bus pulled in while I was scanning the headlines in the newsagent’s in front of the bus stop and I rushed out to meet it. It had been the wrong bus, so I waited and wondered how long ago the council had had the bus shelter replaced, if ever.
Once on the correct bus I sat beside a woman completely unlike myself reading a newspaper. I sought out the important parts out of the corner of my eye. I completely agreed with the style of dress chosen by a French politician. I read all the stories about America. I had to unpick the tears sitting on my lower lashes after reading about a memorial service up north. I didn’t notice the woman leave, but remember picking up the newspaper from her empty seat to continue reading it.
It has to be said though that not all the stories reach these heights and it's a slightly uneven collection in that regard. 3.5 stars although some of the individual stories are 5 star stories.
The book comes with blurbs from the author's of two of the best, and unique, books I've read in the last two years - Republic of Consciousness Prize winner Eley Williams and twice RoC Prize and Goldsmiths shortlisted Isabel Waidner, and the book belongs in similar company, and that of fellow RoC nominee David Hayden and of Carmen Maria Machado, but with a unique flavour of its own: playful but at times disturbing, anti-realist and yet recognisable.
The author's own take on her work (https://minorliteratures.com/2020/03/...
Things like misogyny, xenophobia, class inequality and personal agency feature repeatedly, so they’re all naturally connected in that sense. Power dynamics and hierarchies come up a lot, identity and one’s sense of self versus how others perceive us, but also how all texts are fictions or have the potential to become narratives; the ways we fictionalise ourselves or are made characters in official documents, for instance.
...
I sometimes find realism bizarre, absurd, even creepy in its attempt to be a simulacrum of lived life, especially in how narrow its view of life and the people within it can be. I suppose I like how fables give you the bare bones and you as a reader have to furnish the bones with your own flesh.
I think what makes it most appealing as a form is that the same narratives and messages and myths from very old stories created to teach children and especially young women still dominate our contemporary moment. A couple of the stories in the book explore the idea of ‘happy ever after’ for instance, or of leaving the small town for the big city, or the obsession with the ultimate prize of wealth and regard. These narratives surround us in the media, in film, and especially reality TV, and seep into the fabric of reality.
Gabriel Josipovici's in What Ever Happened to Modernism? commented that realist novels They do what they set out to do perfectly and adequately: they help tell a story and create a world and characters to inhabit that world that do not flout the laws of probability - Calleja's approach is certainly not this.
Perhaps my favourite story of all was Literary Quartet, set at the annual ceremony Prize of Prizes Prize, a brilliantly inventive and bizarre satire of literary prizes and indeed the literary industry.
Another highlight was a Town called Distraction, the story of a rather distracted journey:
I knew I would be distracted by the world. The world requests time. I’d been listening to the news on the radio before leaving and had to spring back upstairs to note down names mentioned in the broadcast to look up later on. The bus pulled in while I was scanning the headlines in the newsagent’s in front of the bus stop and I rushed out to meet it. It had been the wrong bus, so I waited and wondered how long ago the council had had the bus shelter replaced, if ever.
Once on the correct bus I sat beside a woman completely unlike myself reading a newspaper. I sought out the important parts out of the corner of my eye. I completely agreed with the style of dress chosen by a French politician. I read all the stories about America. I had to unpick the tears sitting on my lower lashes after reading about a memorial service up north. I didn’t notice the woman leave, but remember picking up the newspaper from her empty seat to continue reading it.
It has to be said though that not all the stories reach these heights and it's a slightly uneven collection in that regard. 3.5 stars although some of the individual stories are 5 star stories.
April 18, 2020
I received this book as part of my Patreon subscription to The Republic of Consciousness. This subscription means that each month I am sent a book from one of the UK’s small, independent publishers. It’s a great way to be introduced to new books and new publishers, although it’s not the cheapest way to buy new books as the subscription costs more than the book normally. It is, however, helping to raise funds for a good cause, so that last bit is not a complaint.
This book is published by Prototype. I didn't recognise the name, but, after being reminded by Paul, I realised I read Fatherhood from the same publisher not too long ago. Their tagline is:
Creating new possibilities in the publishing of fiction and poetry through a flexible, interdisciplinary approach and the production of unique and beautiful books.
And on the back of the book are endorsements from Isabel Waidner, Eley Williams and Sophie Mackintosh. The first two of those authors have produced works that I have really enjoyed.
I think perhaps all of this raised my expectations a bit too high: although many of the stories here are inventive with a slightly sideways take on the world, somehow I didn’t find the spark to make them really take off in my imagination. I am prepared to believe that’s a failing on my part rather than the book’s. That said, Literary Quartet, the second story is a great satire of literary prizes and the literary world that works especially well because it winds up the “normal” reader by making the public vote a derisory award that no one wants to win. And some of the stories are quite surreal: in one a flash flood washes a young girl out of her school and she ends up talking to sheep and dead animals as the water flows around her. I also particularly enjoyed the story Due Process in which an artist murders her sister who is her creative partner and hides the evidence in plain sight.
When talking about themes in the book, that author has said:
I write a story when I feel really strongly about something, and I become fixated on exploring an answer to a question or a worry or fear through fiction. Things like misogyny, xenophobia, class inequality and personal agency feature repeatedly, so they’re all naturally connected in that sense. Power dynamics and hierarchies come up a lot, identity and one’s sense of self versus how others perceive us, but also how all texts are fictions or have the potential to become narratives; the ways we fictionalise ourselves or are made characters in official documents, for instance.
Overall, I did enjoy reading the book. It’s just that it wasn’t, in my reading of it, quite as edgy as I was expecting it to be. As I say, that may well be me not the book.
This book is published by Prototype. I didn't recognise the name, but, after being reminded by Paul, I realised I read Fatherhood from the same publisher not too long ago. Their tagline is:
Creating new possibilities in the publishing of fiction and poetry through a flexible, interdisciplinary approach and the production of unique and beautiful books.
And on the back of the book are endorsements from Isabel Waidner, Eley Williams and Sophie Mackintosh. The first two of those authors have produced works that I have really enjoyed.
I think perhaps all of this raised my expectations a bit too high: although many of the stories here are inventive with a slightly sideways take on the world, somehow I didn’t find the spark to make them really take off in my imagination. I am prepared to believe that’s a failing on my part rather than the book’s. That said, Literary Quartet, the second story is a great satire of literary prizes and the literary world that works especially well because it winds up the “normal” reader by making the public vote a derisory award that no one wants to win. And some of the stories are quite surreal: in one a flash flood washes a young girl out of her school and she ends up talking to sheep and dead animals as the water flows around her. I also particularly enjoyed the story Due Process in which an artist murders her sister who is her creative partner and hides the evidence in plain sight.
When talking about themes in the book, that author has said:
I write a story when I feel really strongly about something, and I become fixated on exploring an answer to a question or a worry or fear through fiction. Things like misogyny, xenophobia, class inequality and personal agency feature repeatedly, so they’re all naturally connected in that sense. Power dynamics and hierarchies come up a lot, identity and one’s sense of self versus how others perceive us, but also how all texts are fictions or have the potential to become narratives; the ways we fictionalise ourselves or are made characters in official documents, for instance.
Overall, I did enjoy reading the book. It’s just that it wasn’t, in my reading of it, quite as edgy as I was expecting it to be. As I say, that may well be me not the book.
March 16, 2020
Reading Jen Calleja’s short stories is like throwing a spanner into a functioning machine, or taking the Mona Lisa and then drawing cartoon buck teeth on her. What I mean by this analogy is that she presents something seemingly normal and then makes it quirky until the whole story becomes unhinged.
Take the early highlight, Literary Quartet. It starts off with a writer in a prize giving ceremony and I thought the story was going to be a satire of book prizes but then things change and the story evolves with the main character having and existential crises and abandoning the prize only to find out that the person won.
Another example of this muted surrealism would be The Natural where a young actor is fed up of people seeing him as a comedic talent. He then wrangles a meeting with a mega star, hoping that she will see the actor in a serious light. The way things play out, the reader will thinks that all will go according to plan but then she shes him as a comedic actor and tells to continue being funny.
Not all the stories are like this. Divination verges into the surreal and quite nightmarish, Gross Cravings details a pregnant woman’s desire to eat rich food and hang around moneyed people. The Debt Collector goes into the dynamics of ending a relationship ( the theme is revisited in the story Due Process)
I’ve always wondered how a short story can be approached in an interesting way and Jen Calleja manages this. The 13 stories in this collection will twist your brain, make you squirm and laugh. There’s an overall weirdness that makes these stories surprise the reader. They really do stand out.
If one thinks that the short story is a hackneyed format, think again, Jen Calleja has just pushed a couple of boundaries in this collection. Furthermore this is just the beginning. I’m sure more boundaries will be pushed even further in due time.
Many thanks to Prototype for providing a copy of I’m Afraid That’s All We Got Time For.
Take the early highlight, Literary Quartet. It starts off with a writer in a prize giving ceremony and I thought the story was going to be a satire of book prizes but then things change and the story evolves with the main character having and existential crises and abandoning the prize only to find out that the person won.
Another example of this muted surrealism would be The Natural where a young actor is fed up of people seeing him as a comedic talent. He then wrangles a meeting with a mega star, hoping that she will see the actor in a serious light. The way things play out, the reader will thinks that all will go according to plan but then she shes him as a comedic actor and tells to continue being funny.
Not all the stories are like this. Divination verges into the surreal and quite nightmarish, Gross Cravings details a pregnant woman’s desire to eat rich food and hang around moneyed people. The Debt Collector goes into the dynamics of ending a relationship ( the theme is revisited in the story Due Process)
I’ve always wondered how a short story can be approached in an interesting way and Jen Calleja manages this. The 13 stories in this collection will twist your brain, make you squirm and laugh. There’s an overall weirdness that makes these stories surprise the reader. They really do stand out.
If one thinks that the short story is a hackneyed format, think again, Jen Calleja has just pushed a couple of boundaries in this collection. Furthermore this is just the beginning. I’m sure more boundaries will be pushed even further in due time.
Many thanks to Prototype for providing a copy of I’m Afraid That’s All We Got Time For.
January 24, 2021
Delightful seemingly normal yet weird stories. Brilliant, some of the best short stories I've read in ages.
May 18, 2020
Absurdist and Oblique Shorts
Review of the Prototype Publishing paperback edition (Feb. 1, 2020)
The cover image of I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For provides a signal that not everything in this book is as it would be in regular life. A disembodied hand motions at another hand in the universal gesture of "Time's up!" or "Time is running out!" Opposite to real life, it is the hand which is doing the gesticulating that is the one which is wearing a watch.
Jen Calleja takes seemingly normal events but turns them in sometimes absurdist or oblique ways which results in humour and satire from unexpected places. My favourites here were those most associated with writers, which were Literary Quartet and Apart From When. The former is summarized in the book's synopsis as "A novelist questions why she's been shortlisted for the Prize of Prize's Prize" (which made me think of the Booker of Bookers Prize from a few years back). The latter has a writer going AWOL while returning to their hometown for a book reading event and producing a short story from the experience. Gross Cravings has a pregnant woman craving luxury consumer goods instead of the usual quirky foods. All of the stories were enjoyable as they took an offbeat view of otherwise normal activities and the results often were a social commentary on the events themselves.
I read I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For as the April 2020 book perk from my support of The Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Trivia and Link
You can read Literary Quartet at the Somesuch Stories site here.
Review of the Prototype Publishing paperback edition (Feb. 1, 2020)
The cover image of I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For provides a signal that not everything in this book is as it would be in regular life. A disembodied hand motions at another hand in the universal gesture of "Time's up!" or "Time is running out!" Opposite to real life, it is the hand which is doing the gesticulating that is the one which is wearing a watch.
Jen Calleja takes seemingly normal events but turns them in sometimes absurdist or oblique ways which results in humour and satire from unexpected places. My favourites here were those most associated with writers, which were Literary Quartet and Apart From When. The former is summarized in the book's synopsis as "A novelist questions why she's been shortlisted for the Prize of Prize's Prize" (which made me think of the Booker of Bookers Prize from a few years back). The latter has a writer going AWOL while returning to their hometown for a book reading event and producing a short story from the experience. Gross Cravings has a pregnant woman craving luxury consumer goods instead of the usual quirky foods. All of the stories were enjoyable as they took an offbeat view of otherwise normal activities and the results often were a social commentary on the events themselves.
I read I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For as the April 2020 book perk from my support of The Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Trivia and Link
You can read Literary Quartet at the Somesuch Stories site here.
June 25, 2021
Some genuinely maverick and wildly inventive stories! Occasionally the phrasing was a bit long-winded for me, and there were a few stories which I wasn't particularly fussed about, but there's enough in here - especially "Literary Quartet", "Due Process", "Divination", "Befriended", and "The Amnesty" - that I'll be thinking about for a long time. Sauna Youth Rulez OK!
November 8, 2021
Writer and translator Jen Calleja presents a sharp and mesmerising collection of thirteen stories. Many of the stories take on a fairly ordinary topic which Calleja warps and manipulates into something strange and captivating. One of my favourite stories in the collection is Gross Cravings, which is about a pregnant food writer keeping a pregnancy diary. As the diary progresses, it is less about the pregnancy and becomes a fascinating reflection of the self. The back of the book states that the stories ‘investigate histories, power dynamics, rituals, institutions — the roles we adopt, as well as the ones we inherit’ and Calleja does this brilliantly.
A story I think would be really popular with the bookstagram crowd is Literary Quartet, which is about a novelist who is shortlisted for the Prize of Prize’s Prize. This story was a brilliant commentary on the book industry and awards ceremonies and was the perfect combination of funny but slightly surreal.
I am so thankful to Prototype for sending me a copy of this because I have now fallen in love with Jen Calleja’s writing and I am eager to read more of her work. I really think this is a collection that a lot of people would enjoy and this collection holds a really diverse range of stories and displays Calleja’s versatility as a writer.
A story I think would be really popular with the bookstagram crowd is Literary Quartet, which is about a novelist who is shortlisted for the Prize of Prize’s Prize. This story was a brilliant commentary on the book industry and awards ceremonies and was the perfect combination of funny but slightly surreal.
I am so thankful to Prototype for sending me a copy of this because I have now fallen in love with Jen Calleja’s writing and I am eager to read more of her work. I really think this is a collection that a lot of people would enjoy and this collection holds a really diverse range of stories and displays Calleja’s versatility as a writer.
February 21, 2022
I’ve read this short story collection a few weeks back, and some of the stories still keep randomly popping into my head… I’m actually thinking about re-reading it some time soon. “Literary Quartet” is probably my favorite story; “Apart From When” and “Divination” also stand out among the others. But to be honest, there isn’t a single story that I didn’t like in some way or another.
A great little book!
A great little book!
February 20, 2025
Fell in love with this anthology of stories slowly. Wouldn’t say that all the stories resonated with me but there were some that were written beautifully and I felt so deeply for. The sort of book I’ll revisit with different emotions each time.
September 24, 2020
Covid 19 had blunted my appetite for fiction, and indeed for reading anything much beyond the news, but Jen Calleja has given me the munchies. Wonderful, fresh, new minted stories.
September 21, 2021
Gorgeous and surreal
October 14, 2023
3.5 stars
February 18, 2024
3.5 stars.
July 3, 2024
it puzzles me how one can change their writing style in such a manner; shortstories - some better some worse
July 29, 2024
Eclectic bunch of short stories but they were all interesting
January 14, 2025
Was odd, but I kinda loved it?
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews