Category: Short Fiction

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.

Still: ‘From the Archive’ by James Miller

11th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: the main seat in Hornsey Town Hall’s council chamber, with three globe-shaped lights hanging above, and a clock behind. The edges of the photographic slide are visible in the image.

The story: This piece treats Bakker’s photograph as an archive document from the distant past. Much of its effect comes from seeing how Miller’s unidentified future writer has misinterpreted the image, and how knowledge of history and culture have become mangled over time. It’s amusing to read, but also leaves one with the nagging thought of just how easily that sort of thing could happen…

Link: James Miller’s website / interview with Miller on his story

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

Still: ‘The Blind Man’ by Nicholas Royle

8th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a box of crumpled strong-room bags, with numbered labels attached.

The story: Royle’s narrator tells how he became interested in buses as a boy, and stole some destination blinds and bus Fleetbooks. There’s a great rhythm to this piece, helped along by the short lists of bus destinations that punctuate it. And Royle tops it off with a dark twist at the end.

Link: Nicholas Royle’s website / interview with Royle on his story

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

Still: ‘Switchgirls’ by Tania Hershman

7th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: four old-fashioned light switches arranged in a square, each with a label bearing a woman’s name.

The story: a monologue by a narrator whose identity is ambiguous, perhaps a female robot lamenting the loss of her sisters. Details of ‘real’ life are heightened through their transformation into Hershman’s science-fiction idiom, and the ending is especially poignant.

Link: Tania Hershman’s website / interview with Hershman on her story

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

Still: ‘A Rose for Raha’ by Ava Homa

7th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a dried yellow rose lying on top of what looks like a document folder of some sort. A sticker with someone’s name can be seen next to the rose.

The story: Raha and Farzad are young sisters; their father, a refugee, is unable to find work, and faces jail if he can’t pay the rent. The two girls play as their parents argue; Homa portrays this effectively, underscoring the family’s difficulties whilst maintaining the distance that comes with writing from Raha’s viewpoint. The titular rose acts a symbol of the family’s hope – something to keep growing in the garden, and not to remove, for fear of angering the landlord.

Link: Ava Homa’s website

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

Still: ‘Pa-dang’ by Jan van Mersbergen

5th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: the handle of a door that’s been left ajar. A patch of the door’s green paint, next to the handle, has worn or been scratched away to reveal white underneath.

The story: this is the first English-language story by Jan van Mersbergen, the author of Tomorrow Pamplona. Told mainly in dialogue, it concerns a young man named Anton being taken home to see his family for his twenty-third birthday. It’s clear from the start that all is not well with Anton, and the choppy rhythms of van Mersbergen’s prose underline the sense of unease, up to a rather chilling end.

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

Still: ‘The Staircase Treatment’ by Myriam Frey

3rd October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a staircase viewed as it curves around into a new flight. We can’t see where the stairs lead, only that they are shabby and dusty.

The story: after our narrator gave birth, she developed memory problems. Thinking of different words as she climbed stairs helped her recover – but she lost touch with her son as an adult. Now she goes to visit him for the first time in years. There’s a neat reversal in this story, and I like Frey’s use of the staircase as an image and venue.

Link: Myriam Frey’s website / interview with Frey on her story

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

Still: ‘Corridor’ by Evie Wyld

2nd October 2012 / / 2 Comments

The photograph: the end of a wood-panelled corridor. Light streams in through the windows in a door to the left; but the dark wood and the solid wall ahead make the overall feeling oppressive.

The story: a very short piece whose narrator describes how her childhood self tried to keep bad dreams at bay by imagining a corridor as a neutral space. Wyld keeps the atmosphere suitably unsettling, and any hope she offers comes with its own nagging doubt.

Link: Evie Wyld’s website

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

Sunday Story Society: “Drifting House”

30th September 2012 / / 5 Comments

On the table today, we have Krys Lee‘s story “Drifting House”, which you can read on the Granta website here.

It’s the title story of Lee’s debut collection, which has been reviewed in various places, including: The Daily Beast (by Anna Clark); Sul Romanzo (by Monica Raffaele Addamo) The Short Review (by Elaine Chew); Korea Joongang Daily (by Bart Schaneman); Pop Culture Nerd (by Thuy Dinh); The Guardian (by Kamila Shamsie); The Telegraph (by Andrew Marszal); The Financial Times (by Sung J. Woo); NPR Books (by Heller McAlpin); The San Francisco Chronicle (by Marie Myung-Ok Lee); Editorial Eyes; Of Books and Reading; The Brunette Bibliophile.

And here are a couple of interviews with the author, at The Rumpus and The Economist.

Conversation Starters

A couple of questions you might like to consider:

What do you think of Lee’s use of landscape in the story? Is this more than just a physical journey for the brothers?

How well does the structure of “Drifting House” work for you?

Next time: on 14 October, we’ll be discussing “Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring” by M. John Harrison. See the full schedule.

Still: ‘Sanctuary’ by Andrew Blackman

29th September 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a stopped clock on a wall. The wall is bare white, apart from trails of rusty water streaming down from the base of the clock.

The story: an armed man being chased by the police claims sanctuary in a modern church. This story is really enriched by its context, because, like the Still exhibition (albeit in a very different way!), it’s about a space being repurposed. I also love the way Blackman transforms the imagery of dirt trailing down a wall; the ending of ‘Sanctuary’ becomes as much a tableau as one of Bakker’s photographs.

Link: Andrew Blackman’s website / interview with Blackman on his story

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

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