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Jan
2012
This month we
are travelling light, chattering and fragmented, with our new uncanny
suspended heart, making use of the physics of imaginary objects, switch
bitch, learning why willows weep and what the best Australian stories
of the decade were, while listening to English and Irish authors
reading their own stories. A good way to start a New Year!
On the blog: Is
2012 the Year of the Short Story? Find out why some think it is,
including Helen Garnon-Williams of Bloomsbury: "We have been able to
blow our trumpet about our Year of the Short Story, which has, in turn
led to coverage and previews for each of the authors and their
books...." Read the rest of the blog post >>>
Congratulations! to Short Review authors Edith Pearlman and Steven Millhauser whose short story collections, Binocular Vision and We Other are finalists, together with Don DeLillo's The Angel Esmerelda (reviews coming soon) for the 2012 Story Prize! Find out more on the blog >>
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Chattering: Stories
by Louise Stern
"I
wondered exactly where this sorrow she had just told me about was
stored in her body, where she held it that she could call it up so
fast and then dispose of it so fast. I wondered if it was because she
could speak that she knew how to deposit the sorrow outside
herself so efficiently. That was the part I envied."
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"Stern’s accomplished debut will open your eyes to a world bathed in silence
yet brimming with possibility..."
Read the
full review
by Sara Baume
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Suspended Heart
by Heather Fowler
"My
brother was born with a patch of loam under his left nipple. When I was
very young, I often asked to touch it, and Jimmy would pull up
his favorite green polo and turn before me proudly like an older
person with a tattoo."..."
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"If Joyce Carol Oates and Angela Carter got it
on and had a
love child, it would
be Heather Fowler.
Fearless, beautiful, magic..."
Read the
full review
by Angela Readman
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Fragmented
by Jeremy Worman
"These were Home Counties secrets, hidden where no social worker would dare
to pry.
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"A
narrator assembles the pieces of his life, tracking his strange
journey from middle-class respectability to squats and soft drugs,
and finally to a kind of peace..." Read the
full review by Mithran Somasundrum
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The Physics of Imaginary Objects
by Tina May Hall
"It is hard to describe the hole. Digging into a backyard is not enough. A
tear in a shirt is closer to the truth, something that shifts,
something you can see skin through...."
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"Unexpected connections: wasps and love betrayed, barometric pressure and
ovulation, neon flowers and a black hole. Hall's debut collection proves string theory, at least in literary form..." Read the
full review by Diane Becker
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The Best Australian Short Stories: A Ten Year Collection
by Various Authors
"'These
people are wanted criminals,' the major-general said. 'We can't hold
off the operation because there is an unconfirmed rumour that four or
five of them have chosen to stay. There will always be fifth columnists
and bleeding hearts... Our commandos will enter the zone in January to
check for any sign of fox and to check that the collateral odour has
cleared.'"
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"My hackles rise at the sight of a Best of...
and while this is an anthology that is far from universally excellent,
it does contain some of the greatest stories I read in 2011..."
Read the
full review
by Tania Hershman
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The New Uncanny
edited by Sarah Eyre and Ra Page
"The
uncanny
destabilises
the
reality
of
who
one
is,
and
what
one
is
experiencing.
It
disturbs
any
straightforward
sense
of
what
is
within
and
what
is
without,
and
alerts
us
the
foreign
body
within
us.
Or
worse,
makes
us
regard
ourselves
as
a
foreign
body,
a
stranger.
"
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"The
value
of
this
anthology
is
in
some
ways
diagnostic.
By
discovering
which
of
these
Freudian
tropes
revisited
by
modern
writers
most
gives
us
the
willies,
which
best
elicits
that
inner
knee-jerk
reaction
we
call
anxiety,
we
come
to
know
ourselves
a
little
bit
better..." Read the full
review by Steve Wasserman
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Switch Bitch
by Roald Dahl
"This was a gift he had, a most singular talent, and when he put his mind to
it, he could make his words coil themselves around and around the
listener until they held her in some sort of mild hypnotic spell..."
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"Though
this is by no means a giant peach of a book – Dahl’s writing has
been much sharper elsewhere – this is still marvellous medicine for
the cynical adult reader because it is Roald Dahl. However, beware
the end of the pier-style humour which creeps in and especially the
Bond-esque sections..."
Read the
full review by A J Kirby
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Why Willows Weep
edited by Tracy Chevalier
"These
yew trees are the oldest living things in the country. They wish it
were not so. They would like to slide away, as can the ash and the
oak and the elder. But human memory is brief, stupid, unconnected.
Men have not yet learned to live side by side like the trees of the
forest..."
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"This
collection is a pleasure to read: many of the stories curl around the
sinew of the mind like the branches of the trees they conjure up.
Dive in and be rejuvenated by the wisdom of our woodlands..."
Read the
full review by James Murray-White
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Travelling Light
by Tove Jansson
"
Never
before in his life
had Arne thrown anything
straight and true, but
he did so now."
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"Her
writing is boundless. The narrative worlds through which Tove
Jansson strides are broad, untailored, ever exploding.
forced to face the elemental loneliness of being human..." Read the
full review
by Olivia Heal
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Short Stories: English and Irish Authors Read Their Own Work
by Various Authors
"I
want
to
tell
you
about
a
very
odd
experience
I
had
a
few
months
ago
– not
so
as
to
entertain
you,
but
because
I
think
it
raises
some
very
basic
questions
about,
you
know,
what
life
is
all
about
and
to
what
extent
we
run
our
own
lives.
Rather
worrying
questions.
Anyway,
what
happened
was
this...
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"Short
stories
from
the
past
come
to
life
again
when
read
by
their
own
authors..." Read the
full review by Pauline Masurel
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home
about
find something to read:
reviews
interviews
categories
back
issues
short
review blog
competitions &
giveaways
links
| The Short Review shines the
spotlight on short story
collections, new and older, across all genres, styles, publishers and
countries. Each month we review 10 books and interview as many of their
authors as possible.... Read more>> |
Author Interviews
| "My husband Jonathan Drori is on the Board of Trustees of the Woodland
Trust, and they asked him to talk to me about what writers might do to
help raise the profile both of UK native trees and of
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Tracy Chevalier
Editor of Why Willows Weep
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the Trust and the
work it does preserving and encouraging the growth of UK woodland. We
came up with idea of a collection of modern tree fables. In part it was
because they are short and this was something authors could write
quickly - since they are donating them we didn’t want the task to be
arduous. But also we wanted something that would bring out emotional
responses to trees. Fables can be playful and fun, rather than focussing
on the dry facts about trees..."
Read
the rest of the interview >>
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| "Oh,
a story is a thing you give to your best friend after her third bad
breakup when she calls you crying at dawn and a story is a thing you
tuck around your child when he wakes with a fever and death |
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Tina May Hall
Author of
The Physics of Imaginary Objects
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dreams in
the middle of the night and a story is a thing to hold in your mouth
during dentist appointments and long train rides and endless
committee meetings..."
Read
the rest of the interview >>
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| "From
2000 on I knew I was working towards a collection. The stories
grouped around the themes of Hackney now, and of life in the squatter
movement in Hornsey Rise and
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Jeremy Worman
Author of
Fragmented
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Hackney during the 1970s – I had
produced a London book!"
Read
the rest of the interview >>
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| "I’ve been a writer who writes all different genres of stories and has periodic amazed epiphanies, like: Oh, I should
put this group of stories together! This should be my dystopia collection,
for example. Or, say, I have a lot of stories about love |
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Heather Fowler
Author of
Suspended Heart
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and sorrow and
men. These would go nicely in a book.
That said, the stories in Suspended Heart are rather the jewels of my
heart, work that is very important to me. So it’s a pleasure to have
published this book as my debut collection..."
Read
the rest of the interview >>
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