Category: Short Fiction

Still: ‘Sere’ by David Rose

30th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: the corner of a room, with a flyer for an old amateur operatic performance lying among the dust and flakes of wallpaper.

The story: the word ‘sere’ means ‘dry’ or ‘withered’, and the old narrator of this piece is feeling that way in relation to the modern world. Rose captures a certain stiff formality in the voice of his protagonist; and the range of details focused on creates an effective sense of diffuseness.

Links: David Rose’s website / interview with Rose on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘A Job Worth Doing’ by S.J. Butler

27th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: an old telephone, with its handset off the cradle, sitting on a large wooden meeting-room table.

The story: a cleaner goes to do one last shift at the defunct and empty town hall. This story recalls (coincidentally) the first entry in Still, ‘Midnight Hollow’, which takes a very similar premise. Butler’s story is as evocative as Piggott’s, but the tone is warmer, less melancholic. If ‘Midnight Hollow’ is a story of loss, ‘A Job Worth Doing’ is more a celebration of what has passed.

Links: S.J. Butler’s website / interview with Butler about her story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Paul Rooney, Dust and Other Stories (2012)

26th October 2012 / / 2 Comments

Paul Rooney is an artist who often works with text-based materials. Looking at the publication credits, many of the pieces in Dust first appeared in other forms – as video or sound works, or different kinds of written text. Now they’ve been brought together in this collection, a joint publication by Akerman Daly and Aye-Aye Books.

Voice is a key concern in these stories, and perhaps especially the extent to which the ‘voice’ of a story can be trusted. In ‘Towards the Heavenly Void, a musician with a sideline in mediumship finds himself channelling the voice of Les Dawson – or at least of someone who claims that the comedian we know as Les Dawson was someone with whom he swapped lives, whilst the man who’s ‘talking’ went off to South America in search of Che Guevara. Rooney captures the tone and character of one of Dawson’s monologues, leaving us with layers of voice that – as the tale’s ending symbolises – evaporate when you try to unpick them.

Rooney also makes use of different textual forms in Dust. ‘Transcript’ (a collaboration with Will Rose) purports to document a Q&A session between Rooney, Rose, and a film-maker. The talk soon gets maddeningly and entertainingly out of hand with audience interruptions, which dissolve the text into a clamour of voices – all overlaid with the interventions of the anonymous transcriber. It’s typical of Rooney’s playful approach that, as a character, the author says nothing; though of course his words are all over this piece.

Other stories have more conventional structures but come at the author’s concerns in equally effective ways. ‘Words and Silence’ tells of a call centre worker who creates elaborate personas for herself when making calls; eventually her imaginings threaten to swamp her view of reality. ‘The Kendal Iconoclasm’ turns a spy thriller into a tale of existential horror: its characters know they’re in a story – they can see it being typed out in front of their eyes – but not who the writer (or writers) are. Rooney’s protagonist tries to exert some control as he heads up the motorway, but he seems not to realise just how deeply enmeshed he is in the story – there’s no escaping from this escapist fiction. It’s just one example of the treachery of stories and words, as seen in so many ways throughout this collection.

Any Cop? Yes – taken together, the stories of Dust are an interesting exploration of voice and text. And Rooney’s diverse approaches means that there’ll always be something different on the next page.

(This review also appears at Bookmunch.)

Still: ‘Noise’ by James Higgerson

25th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: an enclosed roof space, viewed through a series of triangular support frames, with lamps hanging above. You can almost hear the harsh echoes that would result from any loud noise here.

The story: Higgerson’s protagonist tries to explain to his counsellor/therapist how everything ‘got too loud’ for him. What follows is a snappy, rhythmic jaunt through the cacophony of modern life.

Links: James Higgerson’s website / interview with Higgerson on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘Odd Job’ by Preeta Samarasan

22nd October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a close-up of a metal stag.

The story: while waiting for their exam results, two girls volunteer to do odd jobs at some of the local posh houses – and uncover a dark secret in one of them. This is a nicely paced story, with an effective sting in its ending.

Link: Preeta Samarasan’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘Lift Under Inspection Do Not Touch’ by Richard Beard

19th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a closed door with a ‘Lift Under Inspection’ sign hanging from the handle.

The story: a series of anecdotes about lifts – possibly true, possibly not. Just as Beard’s piece blurs the line between fact and fiction, so it effectively portrays lifts as simultaneously useful and threatening spaces.

Link: Richard Beard’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘The Tree at the Limit’ by Aamer Hussein

16th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a view of bare trees against an overcast sky, seen through a barred window (possibly the same window as in the ‘Corridor’ photograph.

The story: a tour of an art exhibition, interleaved with extracts from the exhibition catalogue and other relevant texts. This is a deftly constructed story, hinting that more may be going on than meets the eye. Hussein reveals the full possibilities only gradually, and even then keeps the truth ambiguous.

Link: Aamer Hussein’s website / interview with Hussein on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘The Playwright Sits Next to Her Sister’ by Mary Rechner

15th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: the top and centre of a set of stage curtains.

The story: Mousy playwright Lisa joins her glamorous sister Therese at the theatre, to see the former’s new play. This is a very short piece, but it vividly lays bare the tensions between the two sisters; and Rechner makes good use of sensory detail to convey the stuffy and intense atmosphere of the theatre.

Links: Mary Rechner’s website / interview with Rechner on her story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Sunday Story Society: “Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring”

14th October 2012 / / 5 Comments

To keep up to date with the Sunday Story Society: view our schedule; follow @SundayStorySoc on Twitter; or visit us on Facebook.

Today we’re talking about “Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring” by M. John Harrison, a story which became the foundation of its author’s 1996 novel Signs of Life. To kick off, we have an extensive response from Nina Allan, which I’ll quote only in part here:

You could almost say that ‘Isobel’ is MJH in microcosm […] It bears many ur-Harrison trademarks: gaunt cityscapes in decline, disenchanted individualists in terminal disconnect mode, intimations of the marvellous. The language of the story manages somehow to be both resolute and dissolute, a gradual persuasion of the drab towards incandescence.

And here are some initial thoughts from me:

When I read this story, I still had the experience of Viriconium very much in mind; if that series moves towards the destruction of fantasy-as-escape, I see “Isobel Avens” as doing something similar. Of course, there’s Isobel’s dream of flying, which cannot be realised; and the fantastical surgery, which is no magic solution. But I also think this is a great portrait of an exhausted relationship: empty conversations; Mick Rose’s constant calls for the reader to “imagine this”, as though his relationship with Isobel happened to someone else. And there are some superb lines: “The years I lived with her I slept so soundly” – I love how equivocal that sentiment is.

So, what did you think?

Three tales

12th October 2012 / / 2 Comments

Mike O’Driscoll, Eyepennies (2012)

This is the first in a new series of novellas from TTA Press, the publishers of Interzone and Black Static magazines. Eyepennies is named after a song by Sparklehorse, the musical project of the late Mark Linkous, who took his own life in 2010 (and to whom Mike O’Driscoll dedicates the piece). O’Driscoll’s protagonist is not strictly a fictionalised version of Linkous, but he is a musician named Mark who’s had a near-death experience.

Mark has been beset by bad dreams and waking visions, and this has taken its toll on his life and relationships. He withdraws into his music, feeling that a new album will provide the breakthrough that can lead to stability. But, listening to his previous albums for inspiration, he can hear sounds and voices in them that shouldn’t be there.

Eyepennies is a fine portrait of a person under psychological strain. O’Driscoll maintains the ambiguity over whether Mark’s experiences are supernatural or delusional in origin (and, indeed, over whether that makes any practical difference). The novella’s fragmented structure (reaching back into different periods of the protagonist’s life) further underlines the diffuse state of Mark’s mind. This is a good start for the novella series, and I look forward to future instalments.

André Maurois, A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles (1928)
Translated from the French by Charlotte de Koch

First published in 1928 (and now given a new edition by Turtle Point Press), A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles is a novella chronicling the adventure at sea of one Pierre Chambrelan and his companion Anne de Sauves.

Though they intend to cross the Pacific, a storm causes the pair to land on the privately owned island of Maïana, where life is devoted to the arts. The island has two castes of inhabitants: the Articoles, who spend all their time creating artworks; and the Béos, who use wealth from the island’s copious natural resources to support the Articoles. Pierre and Anne are kept on Maïana for several weeks, to see if the Articoles can draw on the pair’s experiences and personalities for material.

As well as a tale of seafaring, Maurois’s novella is a study of the dangers of insularity. The Articoles have become drawn into art so much that they have disengaged with the world and lost their empathy – their idea of madness is to think about life rather than art. Pierre starts off in his own (less extreme) state of disengagement: metaphorically adrift in life, living only for the romance of the voyage (Anne wanted to accompany him for similar reasons). His experiences on Maïana lead him to take stock, and find new connections with the world and other people. Yet here Pierre is, writing a journal of his voyage, just as the Articoles would – so perhaps he hasn’t left the past behind entirely after all. A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles is entertaining and thought-provoking in equal measure.

(This review also appears on We Love This Book.)

Alison Littlewood, The Eyes of Water (2012)

This Spectral Press chapbook takes us to Mexico, where Alison Littlewood’s diver-protagonist Alex contemplates the gruesome death of his friend Rick. Far more skilled than Alex, Rick had been exploring one of the water-filled caves known as cenotés when something tore off his face. Alex learns that the Maya used the cenotés as places of sacrifice – and a vision of Rick encourages him to go exploring himself. There’s a nice sense of place about this story, particularly where the cenotés are concerned. Littlewood also constructs her plot skilfully, managing to tick all the event-boxes one expects to be ticked, whilst still leaving space for the denouement to head somewhere else.

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