Tag Archives: short stories

#BookReview ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson #shortstories

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Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson is a collection of eleven inter-connected stories that as soon as you finish reading them you’ll want to start again. As the title hints, nothing is as it seems. Is someone alive, or could they be dead. Does that voice belong to a person, or a cat? Will Franklin ever find the right girl? Kate AtkinsonThe first story ‘The Void’ sets a dark tone as the Universe blinks. Atkinson shows us the arbitrariness of life, the obsessions and minutia of daily living that become irrelevant as people suddenly drop dead. Things mentioned in passing in this first story may be referenced later, it is worth paying attention. The tone doesn’t stay dark, it shifts from story to story. There are laugh-out-loud moments and then Atkinson will turn the mood on a sixpence.
‘Puppies and Rainbows’ made me smile. The key character, Skylar Schiller is a child actress turned film star filming in England, her daily routine sustained by a stream of tablets and potions. Then at the party following the film’s premiere in Leicester Square, she bumps into an ordinary looking guy who is anything but.
My favourite character Franklin, a producer on television soap Green Acres, pops up regularly and knits together some of the disparate storylines. He is a ‘man of straw, buffeted and blown around on the winds of change. Sometimes he had the feeling that he existed only on the fringes of other’s people’s lives, not at the heart of his own.’ If Normal Rules Don’t Apply was a Venn diagram, Franklin would be at the centre. You’ll enjoy spotting the links as you go along.
Atkinson has such a wonderful way with words, down-to-earth and ordinary, set in a disorientating strange world. For example, in ‘Blithe Spirit’ Mandy is dead but the description seems reassuringly bland. ‘Seventeen years old when she started work, armed with her RSA certificate and a fuschia lip-gloss and already thinking with nostalgic fondness of the drunken and careless youth she had exchanged in order to be tethered to a Dictaphone.’ Just as Mandy is settling into one world, she is transported to another. The truth of her death, when it is revealed, is a surprise and another link to the Venn diagram.
These stories rattle along at a high pace, at times I needed to catch my breath. I know that a lot of references, and chuckles, passed me by. The writing is beautiful, as always with Atkinson, and I enjoyed the Yorkshire settings. Some of it seems a bit mad but she takes the reader by the hand and leads them on her rollercoaster.
Original. One to read and read again and to think about. Just because a story makes you laugh, doesn’t mean there’s isn’t a serious theme.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Kate Atkinson:-
A GOD IN RUINS
LIFE AFTER LIFE
SHRINES OF GAIETY
TRANSCRIPTION
BIG SKY #5JACKSONBRODIE
DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK #6JACKSONBRODIE

If you like this, try:-
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor
‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ by Amanda Huggins
‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NORMAL RULES DON’T APPLY by Kate Atkinson #shortstories https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7Nt via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Ferdia Lennon

#BookReview ‘Each of us a Petal’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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All of human life is reflected in the perceptive short stories by Amanda Huggins and the focus of her latest anthology, Each of us a Petal, is Japan. From city streets and bars to the silence of snow-covered mountains, Huggins’ love and knowledge of the country shine clearly. It is her love song for Japan, its people, its heritage, countryside and traditions. Amanda HugginsThe Japanese lens brings a new flavour to themes familiar from earlier anthologies, of love and loss, being adrift and on the outside or left behind, and notions of identity. The small details are beautifully described. Ume, who collects champagne and oranges to start her day with a mimosa. Suzume who catches a glimpse of graceful cranes through a train window, ‘their black-tipped wings lit by the sun.’ Huggins has sat in the late night bars watching salarymen down glass after glass of whisky, she has walked the mountain paths where bears may lurk in shadows. As well as winning the Saboteur Award for Best Novella twice, prizes for poetry and the 2018 Costa Short Story Award runner-up award, she is also an award-winning travel writer. In Each of Us a Petal, these disciplines and insight are drawn together.
One of my favourite stories, one I found myself thinking about days later, is the shortest. ‘Sparrow Footprints’ is only one page, a brief tale as delicate as a bird’s footprints in the snow but the emotional message between the words is heavy and oh so familiar to anyone who has loved.
‘The Knife Salesman from Kochi’ is a longer tale with a shock at the end. Mr Omote is the knife salesman from Kochi who stays at the inn owned by Yumi, inherited from her mother. Huggins explores a depth of grief that, once the surface signs have faded, lurks deeply hidden from even those closest.
‘Stolen’ is about the illicit freedom that comes with anonymity, questioning how well you know yourself and the one that you are closest to. Anna and Keizo meet friends in the woodlands in moonlight, it is kitsune festival time and families picnic, children play, many wear masks. Keizo’s friends all wear traditional fox masks which cover the whole of the face, Anna and Keizo are given masks too. When couples begin disappearing into the woods, hand in hand, Keizo says they are taking advantage of the privacy offered by the trees.
Huggins is a master of condensing emotion into a few pages, focusing on one element and exploring it with precision and beauty. I finished the book and immediately started leafing through the pages again, searching for favourites to re-read. The title of the anthology is a quote from Huggins’ essay ‘Each of Us a Petal,’ included in this book, and refers to cherry blossom.
CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK AT THE AUTHOR’S WEBSITE

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Town Called Solace’ by Mary Lawson
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘Anderby Wold’ by Winfred Holtby

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview EACH OF US A PETAL by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7h2 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor #shortstories

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The books of William Trevor have delighted me over many years, his novels and short stories are all excellent. Last Stories is the last of his short stories, published in 2018, two years after his death. They are masterful. His a such an observer of human nature, sensitive to emotion, the fickleness and unpredictability of human nature, and the longevity of longing. William TrevorTen stories. Each touching. Trevor focusses on the solitary people, quiet, often overlooked but each with emotional turmoil beneath the surface. Trevor digs deep to reveal the things unseen. The stories are simple, mostly involve two people, and revolve around love, loss and guilt. Most are poignant.
In ‘The Women,’ two women stand at the side of the hockey pitch and watch the schoolgirls play. They concentrate on one girl in particular. Cecilia, sent away to school by her widowed father who wants to her grow up as a girl surrounded by girls, is aware of the attention but puzzled by it.
‘Giotto’s Angels’ tells the story of two lost, lonely people, whose lives converge by accident. A man with poor memory stops people on the street, asking if St Ardo’s church is nearby. No one can help him, except a woman standing in a doorway who misreads his signals and assumes he wants female company. The two walk together, each consumed by their own understanding of the situation, completely wrong in their assumptions.
In ‘The Unknown Woman,’ a priest visits the home of Harriet Balfour to tell her Emily Vance has died in a street accident. He found Harriet’s name on a list of Emily’s cleaning clients. He can find no one who knows her but Harriet can tell him nothing of Emily’s life. Trevor explores the gap remaining when someone dies, especially the death of someone private, whose life touches only lightly they people met.
If you enjoy reading Elizabeth Strout, Mary Lawson, Anita Shreve and similar writers, please try William Trevor. His writing is concise, beautiful but also sharply observed.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

For a taster of William Trevor’s novels, click the titles below to read the opening paragraphs of:-
DEATH IN SUMMER
TWO LIVES: READING TURGENEV & MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA

If you like this, try:-
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy
‘Separated from the Sea’ by Amanda Huggins
‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LAST STORIES by William Trevor #bookreview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6s0 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Jane Smiley

#BookReview ‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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An Unfamiliar Landscape, the new short story collection by Amanda Huggins, is made for dipping in and out of, comprising longer reads with satisfying snappy flash fiction. There is something in every story that made me think, ‘that’s so right,’ or ‘that happened to me,’ or ‘I know how that feels.’ That’s why everyone should read her work. Amanda HugginsThe landscape changes from story to story, from Huggins’ native Yorkshire via Paris and London to Spain and Japan. Each story offers a glimpse of a relationship, an insight into the emotions of love, hope, longing, loss, betrayal, regret and grief. She writes about everyone’s emotions, her stories seem familiar, so well-worn and lived-in they must be true.
‘Ten of Hearts’ is a short, hard-hitting story about magic, about vulnerability, gullibility and sleight of hand. Once bitten, it is difficult to move to a new relationship but often too easy. A previous version of this story was broadcast on BBC Radio Leeds in 2021.
In ‘Eating Unobserved,’ Marnie rents an apartment in Paris where she will work on her next book. Seduced by the beauty of the apartment and the simple delight of the food, she spends her time alone. Until one dark night she sees a light on in an apartment opposite, a man unpacks groceries and pours a glass of wine. For a few nights she watches him, and then grows bolder.
Sam and Isla are in the kitchen in ‘In the Time it Takes to Make a Risotto.’ He is chopping vegetables and she is reading headlines off her phone, reciting his horoscope, sharing crossword clues. As he cooks, her mind returns to the affair she had with his best friend, the lies she has told and secrets kept. As the risotto cooks, the atmosphere tightens with words unspoken.
In other stories, a teenage daughter challenges her father; a tourist visits a war grave on behalf of a friend; a young waiter delivers a room service tray to an older female guest.
Themes recur. Food, the eating and drinking of; the freeing sensation of being somewhere foreign, somewhere that is not home; the assumptions made on first meetings and the subsequent challenging of those perceptions; the making of repeat mistakes; and the time it takes to grieve, both for loved ones, and for chances lost or misused.
Excellent.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ by Victoria Hislop
‘Yuki Chan in Bronte Country’ by Mick Jackson
‘Big Sky’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5Qr via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Scratched Enamel Heart’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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Scratched Enamel Heart, the latest collection by award-winning short story writer Amanda Huggins, does not disappoint. Featuring ‘Red’, the story shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Short Story Award, the other stories include some gems. Amanda HugginsThere are three stories that stayed with me, returning to me at unexpected moments when I had moved on to another book.
‘Light Box’ is about Alice, a daughter grieving for the loss of her father but glad to be free of the stepmother she never liked, who had tried to wipe the house and their memories clear of Alice’s mother. Huggins has a wonderful simplicity of description that feels just right, such as the beach, ‘a slip of a thing, a nail clipping of pale sand beneath a wide sky.’
With a darker tone than any other story by Huggins that I recall reading before, ‘Uncanny’ is unsettling. When I remember it, it leaves a sense of discomfort. Like looking over your shoulder when walking in the dark, clutching your bag to your side. Perhaps she should try writing suspense fiction. Alan eats every night in the same café where Carol is a waitress. It starts when she comments that a blue shirt would suit him, would go with the colour of his eyes. He buys five.
The last story in this collection, ‘This Final Perfect Thing’ is unbearably poignant. A perfect, short, short story. This is what Huggins excels at, distilling human emotion into two pages that anyone can read and feel deeply too.
Huggins is a consummate story writer, as comfortable with the long form as with the briefest of flash fictions and poetry. Her settings vary from India to Japan, Istanbul to the English seaside and she makes each location real, real for her characters and real for me as I read.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Staying Afloat’ by Sue Wilsea
‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ZY via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Staying Afloat’ by @SueWilsea #shortstories

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Staying Afloat, the first anthology of short stories by Hull-based writer Sue Wilsea, has as its sub-text her experience teaching English in schools, colleges, prisons, libraries and community centres and this breathes life into her stories. She writes about lost children, bereaved children, struggling parents and struggling teachers with sincerity and a touch of humour. Sue WilseaI’ve chosen three of the 19 stories in Staying Afloat. You can read more of Wilsea’s stories in her second anthology, Raw Materials.
‘Shapes. Colours’ is the story of Stephen who loves his teacher Miss Anderson dearly but avoids her gaze every morning when she points to the thermometer chart and asks how everyone is feeling today. Stephen has a Worry that started “as just a tiny spider of anxiety, scuttling around in his head at night when he couldn’t sleep.” To avoid attention in class, Stephen usually chooses yellow or orange rather than a dark colour.
In ‘Two Ophelias and Me’, first published in QWF magazine, an unnamed narrator thinks of two friends, Lin and Lyndsey, who jumped off the Humber Bridge. “I like to think of their hair and clothes streaming out like twin Ophelias (the three of us went to see Hamlet once. I thought I wouldn’t understand a word and actually I didn’t, but it was brilliant all the same) as they drift down deep, deep onto the riverbed.”
‘Lost’ is a heart breaking story about loss and memory. It starts “I’d lost my mother and was therefore in somewhat of a tizz.” When her mother is not in her room at her care home or wandering around the garden, Alice takes to the streets to check her mother’s haunts. It is a short, poignant story with an unexpected ending.
The settings for Wilsea’s tales are primarily the North of England and East Yorkshire, her characters including a vicar who discovers his true vocation in his forties; and a schoolteacher whose mischievous and disruptive pupil uncannily echoes her own son. ‘Paper Flowers’ won a BBC radio competition and was read on air by Judi Dench.

If you like this, try these:-
‘The Story’ ed. Victoria Hislop
‘Scratched Enamel Heart’ by Amanda Huggins
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview STAYING AFLOAT by @SueWilsea #shortstories https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3gu via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Separated from the Sea’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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About love, loss, partings and freedom. About yearning for a connection with another person but sometimes recognising it is better to walk away. Separated from the Sea by Amanda Huggins is a collection of poignant stories that cannot fail to touch you. Some of the stories spoke to me personally because of the Yorkshire settings, but locations range from Japan to America and Europe. Huggins has mastered the form; just enough detail, just enough emotion to pull you in and a well-disguised twist at the end. Amanda HugginsI have chosen three stories to focus on. In ‘Whatever Speed She Dared’ a woman drives on an empty motorway across the Pennines in the dark of night. She is tempted by what lies ahead, a new future. But an encounter with a skittish rabbit gives her pause for thought.
In ‘Sea Glass’ two children walk on the beach. Alife tells Cathy that pieces of blue sea glass are the souls of fishermen lost at sea. Another two pieces, he says, are the eyes of ships’ cats swept overboard. ‘If you match a pair of eyes, and sleep with them under your pillow, then the cat’ll find his way back to land.’ A melancholic longing for love and belonging that cuts to the heart.
In ‘Already Formed’, a woman watches a boy arrive at the holiday cottage next door and his presence prompts memories of her son Rory. A child that never was but still exists in the core of the heart, more true than a true love that was a mirage. A sad story, totally believable.
Huggins is a highly accomplished writer who uses language both beautiful and at the same time sparing, there are no indulgent passages of prose to detract from the main message. Every word is weighed before inclusion. A delight.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins, including another novella, collections of short stories & poetry:-
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
CROSSING THE LINES
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
THE BLUE OF YOU
THE COLLECTIVE NOUN FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson
‘Staying Afloat’ by Sue Wilsea
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SEPARATED FROM THE SEA by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3qn via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd #shortstories

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Partly good and partly disappointing: The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, the latest collection of short stories by William Boyd, is a bit of a curate’s egg. The shorter the stories, the more satisfying. William BoydOrganised in three parts, the first comprises seven short stories. If asked for my favourite from Part 1, I would say the first, ‘The Man Who Liked Kissing Women’. Ludo Abernathy is an art dealer who has foresworn affairs, his previous dalliances having finished three marriages. Now, he sticks to kissing women. Except when he can’t resist the temptation of making a killing on a Lucien Freud painting.
The title story, the longest in the anthology, makes up Part 2. It is more novella than short story, and I almost wish Boyd had developed it as such with a full plotline rather than letting Bethany Mellmoth drift from scene to scene. Bethany is a naïve twenty-something who drifts from boyfriend to boyfriend, dreaming of what she can do with her life but failing to make it happen. Each time it goes wrong, she gives up and moves back with her mother. It was a pleasant read but I’m unclear of Boyd’s central message – perhaps, the over-reliance of young drifters on parents rather than being truly independent – which meant I felt no urgency to read to the end. Of course I did. Bethany’s drifting started to annoy me; perhaps that was Boyd’s point?
Part 3 comprised one story, ‘The Vanishing Game: An Adventure’ which stopped abruptly. It starts off well: Alec Dunbar is an actor who keeps being called to auditions, mistakenly for Alexa Dunbar. His bad day improves when an actress who is waiting for an audition for the same film, offers him £1000 to deliver a package for her to Scotland. Dunbar’s road journey is peppered with references to the various films he has appeared in, and this is humorous. But the action becomes increasingly oddball, and the ending was disappointing. I prefer stories and novels that don’t tie up all the loose ends, but this one finished with too much remaining unexplained.

Read my reviews of:
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE
… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO

If you like this, try:-
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy
‘The Story’ ed. Victoria Hislop
‘The Milk of Female Kindness’ ed. Kasia James

‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd [UK: Viking]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH by William Boyd‪ https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3jD via @SandraDanby

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#BookReview ‘Brightly Coloured Horses’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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‘Twenty-seven very short human stories’ it says on the cover of Brightly Coloured Horses by Mandy Huggins. Many of them are competition winners. This is the first anthology by this Yorkshire writer, but these are not the stories of a beginner. She is a talented writer of the human state of mind who chooses every single word with care, and makes every single word work hard to convey its meaning. It has to in a flash fiction story; there is no space for indulgence on the part of the writer. Amanda HugginsWomen, and men, fall in love, out of love, they grieve for what they have lost or never had, their attraction is instant, fading or lustful opportunity, they feel cherished, desired or neglected. I’ve chosen three stories to discuss. Huggins is excellent on the many shades of the human relationship and the titular ‘Brightly Coloured Horses’ is a key example. Marielle and Hugh arrive in Paris for a romantic weekend. ‘The food was mediocre: the bread was yesterday’s and their omelettes were overcooked. She smiled, and said it was fine, and they both drank too much wine because they knew it wasn’t.’ Their disengagement with each other is familiar to anyone whose relationship has broken down. Marielle knows what is happening, wills it not to, wonders why they are in Paris and decides to make her own memories of the city.
My favourites in this collection were often the shortest. ‘Flight Path’ is barely 100 words but conjures up such a clear picture of a place and a moment in time. To describe it is to spoil its effect, so I won’t. It is the first story in the collection, quite rightly.
I chose ‘Kisses’ as my third story, based purely on its opening line: ‘Kevin Healey’s kisses tasted like dunked biscuits.’ Julie is in Tesco when she sees a man she last saw, and kissed, at a teenage Christmas party. Huggins explores the memory of lost teenage years, the yearning promise of something that never was, the hesitant wonder if it could be again.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ ed. by Victoria Hislop
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy
‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3lS via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy #shortstories

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What a treat is All the Rage. Twelve stories about love by the inimitable AL Kennedy. Love:  looking for it, losing it, exploring what love is. Instead of describing the stories, I want to celebrate her writing. The way she tells us so much in just one or two sentences. AL Kennedy‘Late in Life’ features  an older couple waiting. They are waiting in a queue at the building society, waiting for him to pay off her mortgage, in a coming-together of two lives. She provocatively eats a fig, being sexy for him “to pass the time.” Despite his hatred of public show, he watches her, “he is now-and-then watching.” He gives her “the quiet rise of what would be a smile if he allowed it. She knows this because she knows him and his habits and the way the colour in his eyes can deepen when he’s glad, can be nearly purple with feeling glad when nothing else about him shows a heat of any kind.”
In ‘The Practice of Mercy’, Dorothy is lost, alone and approaching old age and contemplating her relationship. “She realised once more, kept realising, as if the information wouldn’t stick, realised again how likely it was that someone you’d given the opening of leaving, someone you’d said was free to go, that someone might not discover a way to come back.”
‘All the Rage’ is set on a train platform. A couple are delayed, travelling home from Wales, stuck waiting for a train that never comes. Kennedy tells us everything about their relationship by describing their suitcase. “Inside it, their belongings didn’t mix – his shirts and underpants in a tangle, Pauline’s laundry compressed into subsidiary containments. They had separate sponge bags too. Got to keep those toothbrushes apart.”
Simon, the narrator of ‘Run Catch Run’, considers his unnamed dog, he is at once a child teaching his puppy and also an adult with a mature awareness of inevitability. “His dad had suggested she could be called Pat, which was a joke: Pat the dog. Simon didn’t want to make his dog a joke.”
She shows us so much, in so few sentences.

And click the title to read my reviews of these other AL Kennedy books:-
DAY
SERIOUS SWEET

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ ed. Victoria Hislop
‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ by Amanda Huggins
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ALL THE RAGE by AL Kennedy http://wp.me/p5gEM4-NL via @SandraDanby