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Mortality
An amateur goalkeeper is frozen solid in a moment of ecstasy as he makes his perfect save. A young man finds himself drawn into the auto-erotic asphyxiation fantasies of his deceased uncle. Two men hunt the elusive Scottish wildcat, one of them a cuckold, the other his cuckolder. A photographer navigates the rapids of London’s fashion-media elite and struggles to remain afloat in a sea of drugs.
From Amsterdam to deepest Devon, from Naples to New York, and from all corners of London to Manchester's Northern Quarter, these stories feature a parade of mad women, male neurotics, lovesick morticians, frustrated pizza waiters, and psychotic serial killers. Like a funnier Ian McEwan or a kinder Will Self, Nicholas Royle’s tales are skewed vignettes of the way we live now.
From Amsterdam to deepest Devon, from Naples to New York, and from all corners of London to Manchester's Northern Quarter, these stories feature a parade of mad women, male neurotics, lovesick morticians, frustrated pizza waiters, and psychotic serial killers. Like a funnier Ian McEwan or a kinder Will Self, Nicholas Royle’s tales are skewed vignettes of the way we live now.
- GenresShort Stories
246 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Royle
179 books57 followersNicholas Royle is an English writer. He is the author of seven novels, two novellas and a short story collection. He has edited sixteen anthologies of short stories. A senior lecturer in creative writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, he also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. He works as a fiction reviewer for The Independent and the Warwick Review and as an editor for Salt Publishing.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 7, 2021
I think what Royle tries to do works better in short forms than in his novel Counterparts. My favorite so far is "The Inland Waterways Association". If you're a Robert Aickman fan, you'll probably know that he was a co-founder of the association, and he is namechecked. There's an Aickman-esque distance and atmosphere here. It's more of a straight crime story, and Royle handles his characters and dialog quite differently (and effectively).
"Flying into Naples" also has an Aickman-esque setup. The English narrator travels to Naples, hoping to connect with a woman with whom he had a brief affair. The woman is just as inscrutable and unpredictable as the typical Aickman femme fatale, and the hapless narrator wanders into a number of uncomfortable and borderline dangerous situations. (Like various Aickman English protagonists when they travel to Europe, of course.) However, Royle's narrator has more agency and is rewarded with more fun, and the story closes on a nice open-ended note.
"Kingyo No Fun" is a memorable trip. A personable but neurotic queer narrator is enjoying Amsterdam with his boyfriend, but . I'm not a fan of the detailed "travelogue writing"; we're told "gracht" is Dutch for canal, where the boundaries of the Red Light District are, what little street connects with what other little street/alley, none of which is important to the narrative. If I really need to know all this (and I already do, having had my share of Amsterdam sojourns), I can just look on a map.
So this is a very diverse collection, with many story types that I'm generally not into. (Unless they're incredibly well-done, and I don't think the ones here approach my admittedly high bar.) 2.5 stars, rounded up generously to 3.
"Flying into Naples" also has an Aickman-esque setup. The English narrator travels to Naples, hoping to connect with a woman with whom he had a brief affair. The woman is just as inscrutable and unpredictable as the typical Aickman femme fatale, and the hapless narrator wanders into a number of uncomfortable and borderline dangerous situations. (Like various Aickman English protagonists when they travel to Europe, of course.) However, Royle's narrator has more agency and is rewarded with more fun, and the story closes on a nice open-ended note.
"Kingyo No Fun" is a memorable trip. A personable but neurotic queer narrator is enjoying Amsterdam with his boyfriend, but . I'm not a fan of the detailed "travelogue writing"; we're told "gracht" is Dutch for canal, where the boundaries of the Red Light District are, what little street connects with what other little street/alley, none of which is important to the narrative. If I really need to know all this (and I already do, having had my share of Amsterdam sojourns), I can just look on a map.
So this is a very diverse collection, with many story types that I'm generally not into. (Unless they're incredibly well-done, and I don't think the ones here approach my admittedly high bar.) 2.5 stars, rounded up generously to 3.
Displaying 1 of 1 review