Category Archives: Short Stories

Old Babes in the Wood – Margaret Atwood

Old Babes in the Wood – Margaret Atwood

I am a Margaret Atwood fan although I haven’t read many of her short stories.

Here’s the blurb …

A dazzling collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, stories that look deeply into the heart of family relationships, marriage, loss and memory, and what it means to spend a life together

Margaret Atwood has established herself as one of the most visionary and canonical authors in the world. This collection of fifteen extraordinary stories–some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine–explore the full warp and weft of experience, speaking to our unique times with Atwood’s characteristic insight, wit and intellect.

The two intrepid sisters of the title story grapple with loss and memory on a perfect summer evening; “Impatient Griselda” explores alienation and miscommunication with a fresh twist on a folkloric classic; and “My Evil Mother” touches on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch. At the heart of the collection are seven extraordinary stories that follow a married couple across the decades, the moments big and small that make up a long life of uncommon love–and what comes after.

Returning to short fiction for the first time since her 2014 collection Stone Mattress, Atwood showcases both her creativity and her humanity in these remarkable tales which by turns delight, illuminate, and quietly devastate.

I listened to this (borrowed from Borrowbox) and some of the stories were narrated by Atwood herself. My favourite story was My Evil Mother. Impatient Griselda is hilarious (particularly in a post-Covid world). All of the stories are excellent and I suspect the Nell and Tig stories (the seven stories about a married couple) might be autobiographical.

Here’s an interview with the ABC.

A review

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fiction, Short Stories

Tell Her Story – Margot Hunt

Tell Her Story – Margot Hunt

We were looking for something shortish for our drive home and found this one. This is my second audible only read (listen), the first being Geneva – I have liked them both.

Here’s the blurb …

From the author of Buried Deep and The House on the Water comes a shocking thriller about a young podcaster who’s investigating a cold case in her hometown and determined to uncover the truth at any cost.

Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse.

Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier. The case went cold with no leads and no suspects, but the more Paige digs into the woman’s death, the closer she comes to a killer. In a small town like Shoreham, it’s impossible to keep a secret forever.

Tell Her Story is performed by Dakota Fanning and features the voices of LJ Ganser, Vikas Adam, Emily Bauer, Ann Osmond, Fred Berman, Jonathan Davis, and Laura Darrell.

I found this to be compelling. It was well-written and plausible (although I wasn’t sure of Paige’s sister’s reaction – I don’t want to spoil the story, so I won’t say anything more). The audio narration was great.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fiction, Mystery, Short Stories

So Late in the Day – Clare Keegan

So Late in the Day – Claire Keegan

As I really enjoyed Small Things Like These, I was keen to read more of her work. I would say this is a short story or a short novella – it only took me an hour or so to read.

Here’s the blurb …

After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabrine, with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude – and the true significance of this particular date is revealed.

From one of the finest writes working today, Keegan’s new story asks if a lack of generosity might ruin what could be between man and women.

Once again, the writing is beautiful. Cathal’s personality and views are slowly revealed (how he doesn’t want to spend money, how his mother was treated).

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fiction, Recommended, Short Stories

You Think It, I Will Say It – Curtis Sittenfeld

You Think It, I Will Say It – Curtis Sittenfeld

I have had this book on my Kindle for a long time (I wonder if I can look back and see when I bought it?). I like to have a kindle book on the go as well as a paper book, so I was looking through my library and found this one. I find it’s best just to pick the first that appeals, otherwise I can waste a lot of time looking at all of the unread books on my Kindle.

Here’s the blurb …

A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate’s seemingly enviable life.

It’s short stories, and often I wanted the story to continue so I could know more. They’re very good, mostly character driven rather than plot driven. Some of the characters are quite unsympathetic, for example the woman from the titular story.

A review

Leave a Comment

Filed under 3, Fiction, Short Stories

Come to Me – Amy Bloom

Come to Me – Amy Bloom

A friend left this book behind when they returned home (on the other side of the planet). It has taken me a few years to get to it, which is a shame because I really enjoyed it.

Here’s the blurb …

Amy Bloom’s first collection of short stories takes the reader into the inner lives of characters who encounter the everyday mysteries of need and desire. They include a frightened father in need of redemption, a psychiatrist who oversteps professional boundaries and a small girl eager for love.

The stories are beautifully written, quirky with an old-fashioned feel.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 4, Fiction, Recommended, Short Stories

Stone Mattress – Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress - Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress – Margaret Atwood

I really enjoy Atwood’s novels – not so much her later post-apocalyptic works (although I did like them), but her other novels like Blind Assassin and Alias Grace. Anyway I always try to read her new work. This one is a series of short stories – some connected and some referring to earlier novels.

Here is the blurb …

A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet’s syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly-formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. And a crime committed long-ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion year old stromatalite.
In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood ventures into the shadowland earlier explored by fabulists and concoctors of dark yarns such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Daphne du Maurier and Arthur Conan Doyle – and also by herself, in her award-winning novel Alias Grace. In Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

I really enjoyed these stories and being short stories I could read one at a time to extend the pleasure of a new Atwood story. They have everything I like about Atwood’s works – brilliant prose (her choice of words is poetic), interesting characters and quirky plots (I mean a woman is mistaken for a vampire – although maybe she is one?).

More reviews …

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/28/margaret-atwood-stone-mattress-nine-tales-review-layers-of-experience

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/books/review/stone-mattress-by-margaret-atwood.html?_r=0

1 Comment

Filed under Fiction, Recommended, Short Stories

New Selected Stories – Alice Munro

When I heard there was a new Alice Munro collection, I just had to read it. Although it is not really new, it’s a new collection of existing stories.

Here is the blurb …

 Spanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power. In her Selected Stories, Alice Munro makes lives that seem small unfold until they are revealed to be as spacious as prairies and locates the moments of love and betrayal, desire and forgiveness, that change those lives forever. To read these stories–about a traveling salesman and his children on an impromptu journey; an abandoned woman choosing between seduction and solitude–is to succumb to the spell of a writer who enchants her readers utterly even as she restores them to their truest selves.

In this review, I said collecting stories with a similar theme lessons the impact of each story. However, this collection is an overview of Munro’s work – there are stories from several of her previous collection. I think this is a much better arrangement and if you could buy just one collection, I would recommend this one.

As always, these stories are beautifully written, insightful and character driven.

More reviews …

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8781916/New-Selected-Stories-by-Alice-Munro-review.html

http://www.newstatesman.com/fiction/2011/09/selected-stories-munro-story 

1 Comment

Filed under Recommended, Short Stories