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"By the
time they arrived at their destination, they could no longer recognize
their own name."
Reviewed by Mario Guslandi For a fan of short fiction like me, a book entitled Best British Short Stories 2011 was incredibly attractive, especially because the stories have been selected by a distinguished editor and writer such as Nicholas Royle. My expectations, however, might have been a bit too high. Don't get me wrong, the volume includes several truly excellent tales, but they account for only nine out of twenty stories, namely slightly less than fifty per cent (which, according to my personal criterion as a reviewer, means an anthology has not passed the text). But "each to his own", so never fear, brave reader, you may find yourself perfectly happy with some of the stories which failed to either impress or interest me. My privilege as a reviewer, however, is to single out from the rest of the volume those which seem to me the best stories. First of all I want to mention Slut's Hair by John Burnside, the excellent portrait of an unhappy marriage, the problems of which are revealed in an indirect way by petty events such as a toothache or the discovery of a little mouse in the house. The tooth had been bothering her all day, and that was why she told Rob about it. She hadn't wanted to and she knew it was a mistake telling him anything, but then everything she did these days was a mistake, and she couldn't go on forever, day and night, being careful what she said and, at the same time, not seeming to keep things from him, because that made him angrier than anything else. The first time I saw my father after he died, I was in the shower, hair plastered with conditioner, when the water stuttered and turned cold. Dinner of the Dead Alumni by Adam Marek is an offbeat ghost story set in Cambridge, while Flora by David Rose is a delicate story about botany, painting and the melancholy of life. Philip Langeskov contributes Notes on a Love Story, the compelling description of a love affair ingenuously told in the format of a very short text with a number of exhaustive and illuminating footnotes. Foreigner by Christopher Burns is a sad story of war and death, remorse and regrets, told in a quiet way and with a perceptive view of life's gloomier side. In Hilary Mantel's Winter Break the ordinary report of an ordinary taxi ride toward a resort place turns unexpectedly into a horror story, The taxi driver leaned into the car to scoop up the second bag. As he did, he nudged aside the tarpaulin, and what she glimpsed and in the same moment refused to see - was not a cloven hoof but ... At the top of the staircase she... opens the door with her free hand. She steps in the bright hallway and pulls the door to behind her, and when the door closes, it is dark. Was it simply that she made a mistake? Sent away a man who loved her and then regretted it? |
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Authors Alan Beard, Christopher Burns, John Burnside, SJ Butler, Robert Edric, Philip Langeskov, Heather Leach, Kirsty Logan, Hilary Mantel, Adam Marek, Claire Massey, Bernie McGill, Alison Moore, Michele Roberts, David Rose, Leone Ross, Lee Rourke, Dai Vaughan, Salley Vickers Editor Nicholas Royle is the author of
several collections of short stories, two novellas and five novels (the
more recent being Regicide,
from Solaris). In addition he has edited fourteen anthologies and runs
Nightjar Press, a small imprint devoted to short stories and chapbooks.
He lives in Manchester, UK. |