Zero-Sum by Joyce Carol Oates

I'm continuously impressed by the creative flair of Oates' writing which fearlessly treads into forbidden areas of our psychological reality. She dares to reveal what we don't want to look at and asks questions which won't permit polite answers. Her new collection moves through three distinct sections from intimate stories of family life and young adulthood to a novella about the collapsing mental health of a modern literary “genius” to dark dystopian tales. There is a group of teenage girls who set a wicked trap for lascivious men, a mother who becomes intent on taking her baby off-grid and a privileged teacher secure in his home while the world outside literally goes to hell. These stories present a sense of uneasy progression where fulfilment seems just out of reach and unspeakable horror may wait around the corner. Oates has a mesmerising way of drawing the reader into her stories and deep into her characters' point of view to show an entirely new perspective. This is fiction which delves into the dynamics of love and personality with courageous intensity.

One story explains “In game theory, a zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and there is a loser and the spoils go to the winner and nothing to the loser.” Throughout the book this sense of competition plays out between men and women as well as different individuals, friends and spouses. It's expressed as a particularly American sentiment which frequently leads to terrible violence. In some stories the characters recognize a double who might supercede them as only one can be victorious. For instance, in the title story a philosophy student who longs for the favour of her esteemed teacher envies his physically disabled daughter and in 'Monstersister' a growth on an adolescent girl's head develops into a feeble twin who becomes the focus of her family's attention. Yet, throughout these tales there are also hints that contentment can be found when equality is truly achieved and egoless love is offered. An ill-fated academic remarks that “To G___, life was not a game of who might win. Love was certainly not a game.” This suggests that the secret to real success might be in striving for mutual support rather than domination.

In the longest story within this collection the famous writer at the centre is simply referred to as “The Suicide” rather than being given a character name. His draw towards self-immolation as a kind of sacrifice to higher art becomes the defining characteristic of his identity. He struggles with mental illness, bouts of medical treatment and increasing paranoia. In following his manic logic we become increasingly aware of how his supportive wife's identity and health becomes completely subsumed to his own. Oates is scathing in portraying his selfish behaviour but also expresses sympathy for the author's dilemma. His longstanding plan for suicide is wrapped up in his egotism about his reputation as a great writer. This is a veiled portrait of the later part of David Foster Wallace's life. In her previous work, Oates has demonstrated a talent for fictionally paying tribute to revered writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway and H.P. Lovecraft by simultaneously recognizing their accomplishments as artists while severely critiquing them as fallible men. It seems apt there's reference to Hitchcock within “The Suicide” because the masculine drive of certain artists is also scrutinized by a character much like the actress Tippi Hedren in Oates' story 'Fat Man My Love' from her collection “High Lonesome”.

As well as interpersonal conflicts, these stories also focus on the heartrending internal dilemmas of characters who struggle with a sense of belonging and being wanted. In the very short tale 'Take Me, I Am Free' a child is literally left by the curbside with other unwanted items to be taken by anyone. Alternatively, in 'Sparrow' a woman learns from her mother who suffers from memory loss that she might have been adopted to replace a deceased child. The highly imaginative 'M A R T H E: A Referendum' contemplates a dominant race of computers that debate whether to keep alive the last remaining homo sapien whose life has been artificially extended. It's powerful how these different situations contemplate whether an individual's inherent value can be quantified and the ways that this becomes measured through their relationships with others in the world. Such vibrant storytelling pulses with life and has the ability to haunt the reader with urgent dilemmas that feel all too real.

You can watch me discuss “Zero-Sum” with Joyce Carol Oates here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL1BB1hKPq4

How Strange a Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman

I absolutely loved Megan Mayhew Bergman's stories in “Almost Famous Women” so I've been greatly anticipating this new collection. One of my bookish resolutions for this year was to read a short story at the very beginning of each morning. That's what I did for the past week with these eight tales and it's been one of the highlights of each day losing myself in Bergman's compelling fictional landscape. These stories focus on the lives of different female characters grappling with desire and dealing with fear. Many are caught between the burdens of the past and the uncertainty of the future because of issues to do with the changing environment, economic inequality and strained familial circumstances. It's extremely moving how Bergman shows how these characters struggle to deal with these larger issues while fulfilling their own ambitions. As a way of not feeling overwhelmed one character suggests “The trick was to believe in your choices.” The author has a wonderful ability to quickly immerse the reader in her characters' reality which meant I was immediately gripped by their dilemmas and emotionally invested in their outcomes.

Bergman builds environments in her stories with rich atmospheric descriptions from a glass-walled seafront property in California to the lazy heat and rotting fruit on a South Carolina farm. Some tales focus on quiet intermediary periods where characters contemplate big decisions which will affect the rest of their lives. Others maintain an immediate dramatic tension as in 'Peaches, 1979' where a serial killer “strangler” is in the area and the culprit might be a part of the protagonist's own family. There's biting inbuilt comedy in the story 'Heirloom' where a woman turns her inherited barren desert ranch into a business where wealthy men can work out their emotional blockages by operating heavy machinery. In 'Wife Days' a woman negotiates a degree of autonomy with her husband by declaring she will only play her role as wife on certain days of the week. However, her ritual of rejuvenation through swimming and washing her face becomes like a circular nightmare rather than a path towards physical/spiritual renewal.

The most sustained and ambitious tale in this collection is the novella 'Indigo Run' (which took me more than a morning to complete as I had to read it in between work demands throughout my day.) It's set on a Southern plantation and primarily involves the tempestuous marriage between Helena and Win and their daughter Skip. Here “The past felt uncomfortably close... as if it were being kept at bay but ready to rush in at any moment and take root again.” It's so compelling how the characters feel duty bound by expectations and the burden of history to play certain roles. However, this impedes their growth and potential for personal happiness. It feels like a metaphor for the larger country. As an extension of this novella there is the compelling final fable-like tale in this collection 'The Night Hag' which charts the life of a figure born from a fish egg who takes “the shape of a woman”. After being used and discarded by a man, she physically and mentally deteriorates until she takes on monstrous properties (both in appearance and her actions.) Aside from this intriguing flirtation with the fantastical, Bergman's stories exquisitely capture the realistic dilemmas of different individuals with great wisdom and psychologically insightful detail.

Terminal Zones by Gareth E Rees

Existential angst meets the climate crisis in this thoughtful and entertaining short story collection. Nearly every tale in this book makes reference to an impending environmental disaster whether it's two female friends living in a cliff edge home that's literally collapsing into the sea or a mother who ingests the constant news of climate change and feels “It was the end of the world and she was totally bored.” This psychological swerving between intense alarm and resigned tedium poignantly reflects the modern experience of watching the world rapidly change around us. Rees dramatises this state of being in imaginative ways including a research ship which ventures into the arctic only to encounter new/ancient forms of sinister spores and sentient bacteria, an animal park/refuge that literally goes up in flames and a dystopian future-set story about a reclusive oligarch's scheme to harness the world's first living computers. Other stories show characters developing surprising emotional attachments to seemingly anonymous concrete and metallic structures whether it's a girl finding paternal feeling in a Motorway Bridge or a new father who falls romantically in love with a pylon. It's moving how the author demonstrates the multifarious ways this admirably diverse set of characters' lives play out in the anonymous interstices of parking lots or seemingly barren fields. Rees' fiction brings to the forefront the experience of individuals in rural England who are often marginalized and relegated to the fringes of society.

Many of these psychologically complex stories are imbued with suspense and horror which makes them riveting to read. A social outcast attempts to harness astrological powers to prevent a crisis with disastrous results. One of the most disturbing tales embeds us in the consciousness of a psychopath who feels threatened by his professionally successful wife and becomes disturbingly obsessed with disposing of his household waste in their new home outside of London. Other pieces in this collection show sympathetic individuals who have grown world weary by the uneasy transition from the freedoms/possibilities of early adulthood to the responsibility-laden experiences of parenthood and home ownership. Rees also experiments with form in his stories. One of the most ambitious of these is 'The Levels' where modern life intersects with ancient occult figures in a time-bending location between land and sea. The variety in structure is consistently intriguing as is the astute levels of social commentary charting not only the climate crisis but the way society is drifting into repressive forms where the public “didn't really know what was going on. The media were in the service of the government, and the government was in the service of oligarchs”. It's also very satisfying reading this collection from start to finish as the closing story neatly makes a brief reference to events which occurred in the first. Fans of Jessie Greengrass and Sequoia Nagamatsu will particularly enjoy these stories. This is socially engaged and inventive fiction at its best.

Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu (translated by Tiffany Tsao)

This group of short stories by Indonesian author Norman Erikson Pasaribu has a playful, metafictional vibe while evoking many vivid characters and situations that contain a great deal of emotional heft. Many focus on the points of views of characters related to or connected with homosexuals whether it be a mother grieving for her son who committed suicide, a man whose close friend turns out to be gay or a woman who snoops through the underwear drawer of her son's husband. The feelings of marginalization and isolation which accompanies much of gay life is approached at arm's length. This sense is carried through the opening and closing stories which are in many ways about the nature of fiction itself. The first story begins in a creative writing class. The final story concerns a woman aware she is being written and finds empty space when she tries to transcend the borders of what is constructed for her. All this ties into the presence of religion throughout the stories and questions concerning omnipotence, destiny and God. These tales collectively give a fascinating insight into Indonesian life and individuals sidelined by mainstream society. 

As with many collections of stories, there were some which stood out as stronger than others. Perhaps this has to do with the way there is an almost equal division between ones which depict specific realistic situations and others which self consciously play with narrative voice to verge more into the supernatural. I felt the strongest of the later category was ''Welcome to the Department of Unanswered Prayers' where the an individual is inducted into the bureaucracy of heaven. I would have loved to see stories such as 'So What's Your Name, Sandra?' and 'Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam' developed into longer narratives. I think it's easier for me to feel an immediate connection when the presence of the author's hand isn't so strongly felt. Though I really appreciate that the truth can't always be approached directly, I wasn't able to connect as strongly to stories which seemed like they were in direct dialogue with certain texts or aspects of Indonesian life I was unfamiliar with. That's not necessarily the storyteller's fault, but it's perhaps an inevitable consequence of reading about a foreign culture. So I really appreciated that the Tilted Axis Press edition of this collection included at the end a discussion between the author and translator where they described some of the references Pasaribu played off from and his writing technique. I enjoyed the author's innovative approach to these tales and would love to read a full novel written by him.

The Ruins of Contracoeur by Joyce Carol Oates

At this time of year I do enjoy dipping into some dark tales of gothic mystery and sinister horror. Recent collections of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates that fall into this tradition include “Night Gaunts” and “The Doll-Master”. The six stories which are included in “The Ruins of Contracoeur” also encompass these elements, but as they are written by Oates they include many deeper themes such as challenging family dynamics, the resilience of girls, economic division in society and the heartbreak of grief. The line between the living and the dead becomes blurred as we follow the thoughts and actions of individuals who've been wronged or wronged others. While some seek vigilante justice, there's not always a clear moral compass used by the complicated personalities which inhabit these stories. These prose are teeming with emotion, they create an atmosphere of unease in the reader's imagination and a feeling of suspense with each page that is turned. 

The story 'Mr Stickum' is predominantly narrated in the collective voice of a group of teenage girls who carry out deadly revenge upon predatory men. In 'The Cold' we find ourselves disconcertingly aligned with the mind of a grief stricken woman whose experience becomes increasingly hallucinatory. With the story 'Monstersister' we experience an alarming sensation of body horror but we're also left with a melancholy sense of what it'd be like if a distorted version of ourselves were to take our place within our own family. The story 'Commencement' may feel like it's set in the most civilized environment imaginable but it's conclusion is so shocking and barbaric you won't believe what you're reading. 'The Redwoods' is one of the most original ghost stories I've read and the title story 'The Ruins of Contracoeur' builds an environment so menacing I felt terrified for the children trapped in this dilapidated family estate. It also took me back to the territory of Oates' brilliant and wildly imaginative sequence of gothic novels. I found these stories thrilling, complex and haunting.

I hosted the launch for this collection and you can watch Lisa Tuttle, award winning author of science fiction, fantasy and horror in conversation with Oates here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfglF6Xyp8

100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

In one story from Brontez Purnell's collection “100 Boyfriends” a character sits in an STD clinic thinking “I could say I deserve better than this – but do I? Really?” That tragic ambivalence and tottering self-esteem is common to many of the characters in these stories where casual sexual encounters are vigorously pursued without caution or care for the consequences. Some lead to more tender feelings, emotional connections or regular satisfying sex. Others are so fleeting it feels like a routine function. Some encounters are so hot it becomes a “squirting epic semen battle” and others are dissatisfying and all the more shameful because the narrator knows he will go back for more. There's an acknowledgement that the expectation is often better than the sex itself. We learn some of these men's names and others remain anonymous as we follow an enormous amount of gay hookups. Like the experiences themselves, the result is that the reader's memory becomes crowded with a plethora of indistinct vaguely-recalled male faces, bodies and details. It's brilliant how this gives a true sense of what that compulsive pursuit is like for some men who have sex with men. 

Sometimes it feels like we get just the tip of a fascinating backstory about an individual only for the narrator to move onto another hookup or the story itself ends. Of course, this is somewhat frustrating for me as a reader as I'd naturally like to know more about some of these characters but it's entirely logical as these fleeting encounters seldom lead to a sustained relationship where sexual partners gain a deeper understanding of each other. The stories are often anecdotal in a way which isn't necessarily gossipy but conveys simple truths about the messiness of casual gay sex. The writing also frequently takes a surprising tone. An encounter with a Satanist which should be horrifying as he details the violent sex which ensues is described in a way which is comic and swerves around whether there is a more ponderous meaning to this experience. What's poignant is how little the narrator values his body and himself, but also how the brutal sexual exchange isn't coded with the same importance that the larger heterosexual society would likely ascribe to it.

Something really refreshing about these stories is that men's bodies are described in a highly realistic way with bellies, scars and variously sized genitals. In so much of gay fiction men's physicality is detailed in a ludicrously idealized way, but in Purnell's stories what might normally be viewed as imperfections aren't shamefully hidden or a turn off. They are simply who we are and there is something very liberating about this. The author also gets at how there's an abiding sense of loneliness which comes with gay life where intimacy might only be fleeting. This experience is encapsulated in the story 'Ed's Name Written in Pencil' which describes the experience of a 7 year old bullied by one older boy and befriended by another, but in the end he loses them both and it's the importance of contact (positive or negative as if to stave off loneliness) that matters more than the quality of that contact. Some gay readers might bristle at how these stories could be interpreted as a negative representation of gay life, but I admire the bold honesty of how these tales describe the filthy experience of some men. There are no pristine white bedsheets in these stories; they are stained with our bodies and this should not be concealed with a blanket. We're at a point where gay fiction from authors such as Bryan Washington and Garth Greenwell can get beyond a pointed political agenda to lay out the complex nuances of homo desire and gay life. I really fell for these highly-sexed wickedly-entertaining tales which are all about fucking around, fucking up and not giving a fuck.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez (translated by Megan McDowell)

It's so exciting to read new fiction that imaginatively blends the surreal and supernatural to tell inventive (oftentimes horrific) literary tales. In Enriquez's short stories the narrators are often haunted by ghosts or plagued by curses. Spirits enact their revenge. Communities are driven into a frenzy by fear. These stories frequently focus on or are told through the points of view of the vulnerable and maligned: children who are impoverished or abused, disenfranchised teenagers or deviants. Neither the protagonists or the ethereal beings often adhere to a moral code. Many act deviously, tyrannically or selfishly. An abused woman is entrapped by a hotel's ghost. The “evil” which plagues a family is transferred onto an innocent girl. A young filmmaker knowingly films and sells videos of children swimming in a pool to a paedophile. The depiction of the sheer chaos of this society which doesn't necessarily reward the good or punish the bad is in many ways more terrifying than the sensational violence or gross details portrayed. It suggests a world that is restless and unhinged. These tales are filled with a lot of tantalizingly dark detail and imagery, but the problem is they too often rely on a twist or gimmick in their plotting. This frequently left me reeling (or rolling my eyes) from the shock of what's revealed rather than being moved by any profundity or psychological insight. 

Interestingly, I felt the final story in this collection 'Back When We Talked to the Dead' was the most successful. This is narrated from the collective point of view of a group of girls recalling a time when they secretly met to use a Ouija Board in order to contact or locate people they've lost. Their connection with the spirits is severed one night when a session ends in a terrifying way. This story hints at institutionalized violence which has led to people disappearing or falling between the cracks of a dysfunctional social system. The point of view evocatively brings to life the voices of friends who were once united but have grown apart because of age and the abiding fear of their actions. It's also genuinely tense and scary as we discover what freaked out these girls so much. Sadly, too many of the previous tales feel like they are self-consciously striving to disturb the reader. Two stories feature people defecating in the streets and multiple female characters aggressively and violently masturbate. I'm not prudish but the repetition of these kinds of details simply revolted me rather than engaged me. I can't see anything revelatory in this specific realism; it's just stomach turning.

The longest story in this book 'Kids Who Come Back' is almost novella-length and explores a theme common to many of the stories. Children frequently disappear in this collection only to return in an altered state where all innocence has been lost. This lengthy story is narrated from the point of view of a woman named Mechi who literally maintains an archive of lost and disappeared children in Buenos Aires. She becomes fascinated by a beautiful missing girl named Vanadis who abruptly returns one day, but not in as the person she was before. Many other lost children also reappear including many of whom definitely died and they are the same age they were when they vanished. People grow to fear them and see them as shells of the children they once were. This is a premise somewhat similar to another Argentinian story 'Underground' by Samanta Schweblin. I feel like Enriquez is able to more effectively build and draw out tension and mystery in this longer story. It better describes doubles or doppelgängers which appear in several tales. It's also more pointed in how it encapsulates a frequent theme of this collection where a neighbourhood or area and a group of people are “tainted” by a scandal or popular myth so they are in a sense “cursed”. The resulting social alienation is just as cruel as the rancour of the spirits. Perhaps the many positive elements of this longer story mean that I'd find Enriquez's fiction more successful in the form of a novel where her rich imagination can be given a constructive amount of room to stretch.

The (Other) You by Joyce Carol Oates

It's common for us to question what our lives would have been like if we'd taken a different path at a certain point or if events had unfolded in a different way. It feels like an intrinsic aspect of human nature to imagine what form this alternate self might take. Perhaps the past year of the global pandemic has provoked us to ponder this question even more intensely and reflect on the collective fate of humanity. What would our society look like if the virulent virus hadn't indelibly changed our lives? Enduring questions such as these expand to more ponderous queries regarding fate and destiny. These are the poignant issues at the heart of Joyce Carol Oates' new collection of short stories “The (Other) You”. The book is divided into two distinct parts which elegantly mirror each other to say something much larger and more meaningful about these metaphysical questions. 

The first part of the book includes creative and dramatic stories which primarily present characters caught in the question of alternate destinies. An American woman finds her solitary sojourn in Paris is disrupted by a man in an emergency. An adolescent girl twists her ankle and painfully makes her way home to find an ominously curious gathering of people. A husband who doesn't like to wear his hearing aid calls out to his wife and tragically can't hear her response. A professor embarking on his retirement revisits the Italian city he spent time in during his formative years to discover it's darkly altered. A woman uses her anonymity to assassinate a prime minister. These tales often include a psychological twist where the real world slides into the surreal and time is skewed so the protagonists suddenly find themselves in a markedly altered reality. It makes these stories thrilling to read both in their plots and the ingenuity of their narrative techniques. But they are also meaningful in what they imply regarding unexpected consequences if we were suddenly allowed to inhabit a different potential life.

A single location called the Purple Onion Cafe appears in three of the stories. Friendly meetings at this spot are troubled by a much larger event when a demoralized teenage boy detonates a homemade bomb here. Yet time often shifts so at some points of the stories this horrific event has already occurred and at other points it is about to occur. It's as if the enormity of this tragic disruption which introduces the larger problems of the world into everyday local reality ruptures the very fabric of time. The way in which this plays out in the different narratives is fascinating. In 'The Women Friends' a chance delay or a moment spent away from a regular luncheon changes the fate of one or the other of the friends. A man waiting for his lifelong friend in 'Waiting for Kizer' finds himself confronted by less-successful alternate versions of himself. It's brilliant how Oates captures a particular kind of masculine competitiveness: both in how men compete with each other and with themselves. The Lynchian vibes of this tricksy story are reminiscent of both Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' and Paul Auster's novel “4321”. The cafe also appears in the story 'Final Interview' where a famous author grudgingly grants a meeting with a presumptuous interviewer. Here we get a disturbing glimpse into the frustrated perpetrator's mind as he decides to bomb the cafe. It's striking how different representations of this location and incident say something about the way monumental events can mark and steer the lives of a group of people whose lives are otherwise only tangentially entwined. 

The second part of the book primarily includes stories about characters who are confronted with the stark truth of their reality rather than being caught in meditations about alternate lives. In 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' an affluent couple find their liberal, non-religious community is under threat from the insidious intrusion of the deteriorating environment and the ravages of ill health. Questions of holy vengeance are rephrased to include more practical concerns: “It's Andrew's (half-serious) opinion that in the twenty-first century damnation isn't a matter of Hell but not having adequate medical insurance.” Three stories which are narrated in the second person differently approach the longterm effects of grief and the propensity for denial to avoid living with the reality of death's aftermath. It's bracing and heartbreaking the way these tales portray specific moments when truth disrupts the flow of time: “For this is not a story, and not a fiction. This is actual life, that does not bend easily to your fantasies.” The story 'Nightgrief' portrays how simply living has become a gruelling task for parents who have lost their child. They prefer to become nocturnal beings to avoid crowds (especially children) and they find they are inextricably caught in the arduous flow of time whether they want to or not: “the worst that might happen, that had happened, had the power, or should have had the power, to stop time. Yet - time had not stopped. Not in the slightest had time stopped. What a joke, to imagine that there was an entity – Time – that might choose to stop.” These stories meaningful show the way we are forced to accept the circumstances of our own lives because the past, the present and the inevitability of death are all concrete fixtures of our reality. 

It feels like the opening and closing stories of this collection must be extremely personal to Oates herself. Again, the second person is used to give the sense that the main character is both inhabiting herself and viewing herself from the outside. The titular story 'The (Other) You' portrays a woman who recalls a significant instance in her young life when failing an exam meant she wasn't able to progress to university or leave her provincial hometown of Yewville in upstate New York. Though she idly dreamed of becoming a famous writer and moving away she got married, had a child, became a local poet and bought a used bookstore. Descriptions of how at a young age she created stories with pictures are similar to anecdotes Oates has given in interviews about her early compulsion for storytelling before she learned to write. Though the protagonist of this story is very content with her life she still wonders about what her other life might have been like. It's remarked how “For your lifetime, this is the sentence. A life-sentence.” I admire the double meaning of these lines which describe how we create narratives about our lives but also how we can become imprisoned within a certain state of being.

The final story 'The Unexpected' presents the imagined “other” life of the woman from the opening story and it's also about a character very much like Oates herself. A famous writer returns to upstate New York to receive an honour from a university and give a talk at the Yewville library. Here she glimpses the used book store in town which has closed down in this alternate reality. Oates described going back to her hometown library in a poignant article in Smithsonian Magazine. Though it can be presumed the final story in this collection is inspired by autobiographical experience it is quite clearly about a fictional character. The narrative darkly morphs into the surreal as the haphazard talk and signing she gives at the library results in barely recalled figures from her past coming forward with accusations and demands. It's an eerily rendered reckoning with the past, but also a meditation on the way we can persecute ourselves by believing that if we'd made other choices those other selves might have lived a differently fulfilling and meaningful existence. Oates evokes the longing and wonder of this duality with tremendous verve. These entertaining and enlightening stories also show that it’s important to keep humour and humility in mind when mulling over the mystifying experience of inhabiting a self. 

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

My cousin Martin used to throw a Christmas party in his Boston apartment every year. At one point in the party he'd gather everyone around who'd listen in rapt attention while he read aloud Truman Capote's beautiful short story “A Christmas Memory.” This was a decades-long tradition and I was lucky enough to attend one year. Martin worked professionally as an actor so he's especially good at dramatising and doing the voices in the story. Though he hasn't held his party for many years, this year he organized a video call with eighty or so guests to watch as he recited the story again. It was a lovely way to unite people from all over the US and globe who can't physically meet this year because of the pandemic. In order to carry the tradition on and share this good feeling, I've made a video of myself reading Capote's story aloud which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBb-9iB89gQ

This is the most lovely Christmas story and unusually sweet for Capote who was such a troubled and viciously distempered individual. I know he was a great writer but I can't help feeling somewhat prejudiced against him since he once said of Joyce Carol Oates that she's “a joke monster who ought to be beheaded in a public auditorium.” Putting aside his personal insecurities and bad behaviour, in this story he perfectly evokes a holiday spirit of cheerful sentiment, friendly goodwill, the evocative warm scents of Christmas baking and a melancholy longing for loved ones we've lost. In their perfectly-balanced companionship young Buddy and his much-older female friend create a harmonious world for themselves filled with loving traditions. Yet, at the same time, they are oddly strangers to each other since Buddy never gives her a name except “my friend” and though Buddy is not his name she calls him this “in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend.” This anonymity funnily makes the story feel more intimate as if individual identity doesn't matter as there is a perfect bond which makes them “each other's best friend.”

The relationship they share is made even closer with their opposition against the unnamed people who also inhabit the house. It's striking how the presence of these familial others is never felt except when chastising the pair for singing and dancing while getting tipsy after they've completed their baking. Their special friendship is sublimely self-enclosed and the cakes they send to people (many of whom are strangers) is such a touching gesture for rewarding mere moments or general expressions of kindness. Of course, it's somewhat uncomfortable reading the racist description of Mr Haha Jones with his “Satan-tilted eyes”. Though he ultimately turns out to be a kind-hearted individual and we're seeing him only through the pair's erroneously-fearful and misguided perception, I don't think this excuses such a detail in the story. It shows it to be a product of the time. Nevertheless, the overriding message of this tale is so graceful and no matter how many times I hear it I get very emotional at the end. I feel lucky to have made some similarly special friendships in my life.

Attrib and Other Stories by Eley Williams

The short stories in Eley Williams' debut collection may not have any concrete connection to each other, but many of them depict brief moments of emotional drama. However, instead of burrowing into the characters' feelings or reasons for these instances of lovers breaking up and other life changes, the stories are filled with seemingly trivial, distracted trails of thought that we follow through until the apparent crisis has passed. This technique might feel hollow if it weren't for the skilful way the author shows how our encounters with others (especially in highly dramatic moments) are often consumed with a fragmentation of different thoughts. It points to the gaps between language and meaning, emotion and its expression, experience and memory. While this left me wondering about many of the details behind these stories, I was nevertheless very moved by the sensation of these private moments of contemplation which are often punctuated with a playful curiosity and humour. 

There's an affectionally-portrayed introversion to these tales. We follow narrators who recite the lyrics to a song from the musical Oliver! or recount how starlings were brought to America by a man honouring Shakespeare. There's an accumulation of odd tidbits and facts which clutter an inward looking mind. This sensibility is enhanced by the way the narrators have more evident connections with animals or insects rather than humans. There's a hedgehog paddling in a swimming pool, a landmine seeking rat with great comic timing and a spider who constructs elaborate tricks. These are beings whose interior realities are ultimately unknowable and so they are in a way safe as confidants. But there are also beautiful moments of romantic tension where a narrator is mesmerised by the colour of a boy's eyes who he hides in a closet with or a narrator who panics over whether to kiss their same-sex partner in a gallery. 

Naturally, I felt the strongest bond with stories where there was a clear tension and something precious was at stake (even if I wasn't certain about the dramatic architecture surrounding this moment.) Several stories express an intense longing for a lover or friend without describing the particular circumstances. 'Concision' is a heartbreaking tale where an abruptly ended phone conversation results in the narrator staring contemplatively at the numerous black holes in the landline receiver. 'Spins' recounts a narrator's fumbling attempts to furtively dispose of a lover's silk pyjamas in a bin that's a sufficient distance from their home. 'Platform' describes a photo taken during a lover's departure at a train station and how the toupee of a man in the background flew off his head at that exact second. There are volumes of unspoken emotion invisibly built into the background of these tales.

Not every story is built around an untold crisis. There are tales that compellingly focus more on an obscure job like recording sounds to go with an art exhibit's audio guide or a chef who specialises in cooking birds in alcohol or a story about the construction and meaning of rosettes in politics. Some stories pushed too far into obscurity so I was left feeling puzzled rather than moved by the unknown details surrounding them. But, on the whole, the stories in this collection are so innovative and enjoyable. Their sense of humour and wordplay alongside an affection for second person narrators felt reminiscent of Ali Smith to me and that's always a good thing. There's something so unique about Williams' slant on the world that I'm very much looking forward to reading her novel.

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan

When I saw the books listed for this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize one that I was most eager to read was Kirsty Logan’s new collection of stories “Things We Say in the Dark”. Logan is a writer who has produced a number of fictional books which creatively engage with traditions in horror writing and fairy tales to innovatively say something which is both current and personal. These new stories continue in this vein focusing specifically on themes to do with the home, family and birth. Many invoke imaginatively creepy imagery involving ghosts, haunted houses, witches, seances and animalism. Certain stories are dynamic retellings of folklore or classic stories such as ‘Hansel and Gretel’ or ‘Snow White’. In doing so, Logan gives an intriguing new perspective on gender, sexuality, relationships, parentage and violence against women and children. It’s deeply thoughtful how she engages with all these themes, but, most importantly, the collection as a whole revels in the deep pleasure of storytelling itself and how our nightmares function as a deeper form of self-communication. It celebrates the drive for riveting new kinds of tales which confront our worst fears as well as querying why these fears are an essential part of us.

The book functions as a series of self-contained stories, but there is also an overarching narrative where many stories are proceeded by an italicised account by a writer who is creating these tales in an isolated Icelandic location. While each story works just as well in isolation, I enjoy how this gives an added layer to the book for someone who reads them all sequentially. At first the author of these short reflective pieces seems to be Logan herself, but then it becomes clear it’s another creation and the dilemma of this (untrustworthy) fictional author is as eerie as the plight of many of the stories’ characters.

This adds to this collections’ overall propensity for creating stories within stories. Frequently characters are telling each other stories or telling stories to themselves of hidden pasts, powerful memories or fantastic dreams. And often personal obsessions or deepest darkest fears are revealed through how these stories are told and retold. At one point the “author” wonders at the philosophical meaning of all this: “We tell ourselves stories, we stoke our fears, we keep them burning. For what? What do we expect to find there inside?” Whatever catharsis or release is found from all this storytelling it’s clearly a trait of human nature and one the author wholeheartedly believes in as does the reader who boldly ventures to read on knowing some horror might be waiting.

Logan is careful to point out in the final story in this collection ‘Watch the Wall, My Darling, While the Gentlemen Go By’ that these tales aren’t merely flights of fancy but also deal with real world issues. This story’s narrator who is abducted and repeatedly raped thinks “Any minute now the story will be over, the credits will roll, he’ll say it was all a joke, run along home now. But the story isn’t over, because it isn’t a story”. Rather than being lost in the labyrinth of the imagination this is the stark reality of violence and it doesn’t symbolise anything; it’s the cruelty of misogyny and an abuse of power. Although she has a great reputation for reinventing fairy tales, Logan has an exceptional ability for portraying such difficult truths as she did so masterfully in her short story ‘Sleeping Beauty’ which appeared in Logan’s previous collection “The Rental Heart”.

A cabin in Iceland

However, I also admire the sheer creativity, playfulness and lowkey sense of humour contained in many of these tales. Some of my favourites include ‘Stranger Blood is Sweeter’ about a female Fight Club, ‘Girls are Always Hungry When all the Men are Bite-Size’ about a sceptic who sinisterly seeks to prove that a psychic girl’s seances are a hoax, 'The Only Time I Think of You is All the Time' about the mysterious pull/compulsion of love and ‘The City is Full of Opportunities and Full of Dogs’ about a librarian whose self-consciousness about working in a building made of glass results in a disarmingly existential conclusion. Other stories are more conceptual in their form but no less emotionally impactful such as ‘The World’s More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand’ which is a very short “nice” story which contains extensive footnotes detailing the terror which underlies simple descriptions or nouns. Also ‘Sleep Long, Sleep Tight, it is Best to Wake Up Late’ is written in the form of a questionnaire about sleep patterns and nightmares which raises disturbing uncertainties about the nature of reality and dreams.

All the tales in this excellent collection exhibit a wonderfully layered sense of storytelling. Often what seems disorientating or simply bizarre at first takes on more meaning and resonance as the story continues. While some stories may be too brief to create a truly lasting impact most give enough of a glimpse through the keyhole to reveal multiple dimensions and form a wider picture within the reader’s imagination. This takes a great deal of craft and talent. I thoroughly enjoyed losing myself in the darkness these stories unleash and discovering what Logan chooses to illuminate.

Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong (translated by Natascha Bruce)

There’s an eerie tension at the centre of the short stories in Ho Sok Fong’s collection “Lake Like a Mirror” but it’s not a conventional tension to do with plot. It’s more an uncertainty about how reality might bend around the perspectives of the characters involved. They might be consumed by plants or become amphibious or escape in an air balloon. Some stories slide more into the surreal while others confront harder realities such as women who are institutionalized or teachers who are dismissed for teaching liberal ideas. These tales revolve around the lives of different Malaysian women who are trapped in certain circumstances often to do with religious or social pressure. The title story is one of my favourites as it delicately describes a sense of how other people’s distressed lives touch upon our own and how we’re sometimes powerless to help them. But I also enjoyed the unsettling humour of the story ‘Summer Tornado’ where a woman attaches herself to a family at an amusement park and forces them to continue going on rides with her in manic desperation. Although many of the characters seem trapped in a sluggish existence there’s often a frenzy bubbling beneath the surface which warps the world around them in surprising and, sometimes, terrifying ways.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The short stories contained in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah debut collection “Friday Black” have a startling way of mixing everyday realism with the fantastic. Many characters are working class individuals struggling to keep their families going while labouring in retail or the night shift at a warehouse. But at the same time they can also be imbued with powers from a Twelve-tongued God, become a spirit who knows how to quell the murderous impulses of bullied boys or a 14 year old female super killer who survives daily nuclear explosions. Violence abounds throughout the stories. There are crazed shoppers who kill everyone in their way to get to sale items and there are groups who commit bloody acts of violence in retaliation for racially-motivated murders. The author amplifies some of the most contentious social issues of today in scenarios which are sadly not far from the truth. Everything from gun control to racism to abortion to genetic engineering are integrated into warped versions of reality giving a new view on these hot topics. The stories are powerfully imaginative while being darkly funny as well as heartbreakingly emotionally honest.  

Some of these tales worked better than others for me. I admire how in 'The Finkelstein 5' the story switches back and forth between two narratives. One half portrays a court trial where a white man is exonerated for beheading five black children with a chainsaw. The other half is from the perspective of a narrator who becomes part of a “Naming” gang that tortures random white people while calling out the names of the slayed black children. It felt really effective how this dual story describes a society where facts and truth have become so twisted up in the willpower of belief. The defence lawyer says at one point “if you believe something, anything then that's what matters most. Believing. In America we have the freedom to believe.” In a justice system that has allowed so many rank instances of injustice to go unpunished, it’s tragically unsurprising that some feel vigilante justice is the only option available. But this story gets at the ambivalence of such a path while delivering a riveting tale that’s a cross between an episode of Black Mirror and The Purge film series.

Not all of the stories conjure up wild fantasies or show instances of extreme violence. Another story ‘The Lion & The Spider’ also uses an alternating dual narrative where in one half a father tells his children stories based in Caribbean folklore. The other half shows a young man left to care for his ailing mother while finishing school and working a job after the father unexpectedly leaves for a long period of time. This creates an emotionally-charged atmosphere within the story as feelings of youthful innocence are paired against the onerous responsibilities of a premature adulthood when a father shirks his duty. Some of the most touching moments in this collection come when well-meaning children are forced into being carers for their parents such as a young man who takes his father to a labyrinthine hospital in 'The Hospital Where' or a young man who wants to win a jacket for his mother in a sales-driven retail competition.

The violent chaos of a Black Friday sale.

Sometimes the creative slant the author takes on certain issues doesn’t work quite as smoothly. 'Lark Street' describes a man who comes under the accusatory gaze of his girlfriend’s aborted twin foetuses. While the story takes seriously this emotionally harrowing dilemma it felt like it revelled a little too freely in the grotesque nature of such a scenario. Equally 'Light Spitter' which describes an instance of a campus gun slaying relies a little too heavily on conventional ideas of angelic influence – even with the twist that even the “irredeemable” has a moral core. Still other stories have a surprising degree of repetitive elements like the diligent mall employees in both 'How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing' and ‘Friday Black’. But the later title story felt much more successful in hilariously playing up what’s become the most ridiculous post-Thanksgiving annual retail tradition.

One of the most striking things about this book is the consistent feeling that working class young people are frequently forced to compromise their values and education in order to make a living. Sometimes individuals must play into racial stereotypes or swallow their pride in the face of blatant racism in order to maintain their jobs. There are also asides which testify to being made to feel otherness: “A nurse called out sounds that we understood as her attempt to pronounce our last name.” Such feelings are most dramatically described in the story 'Zimmer Land' where an employee submits to being the continuous victim in violent role playing scenarios that are purportedly about “interactive justice engagement”. This story cleverly portrays the hypocrisy of profit-driven initiatives that claim to teach morality but actually perpetuate stereotypes and bigotry. I’m impressed how daring and forceful the author is in creatively describing instances of painful injustice and social inequality. He’s certainly an impressive new author well worth paying attention to.

Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell)

Like many people, I was fascinated by the surreal atmosphere and ambiguous meaning of Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin's novel “Fever Dream” when it first appeared in English a couple of years ago. Now a collection of her short fiction has just been published and it's of a similar sinister vibe with odd twists of logic that often veer into near nightmares. Here are stories of children that transform into butterflies, businessmen who are turned into farm hands, a dissatisfied wife who meets an amorous merman and a daughter whose new diet consists solely of consuming living birds. This subject matter could easily feel whimsical if it were written by another author, but Schweblin maintains elements of psychological truth so this fiction continues to feel real even if it's filled with the fantastical. Her stories often feel like puzzles where the meaning is tantalizingly close and I could solve it if I could just work out the intricately constructed design she's skilfully created. But, of course, these stories offer no definitive answers – just glimpses of the inexpressible fears, desires and carnage which simmer just under the surface of our everyday reality.

The way Schweblin approaches common themes from an unlikely angle brings out a new kind of emotional honesty. So subjects such as infidelity, miscarriages, eating disorders, spousal abuse, body image and depression are explored in these stories but in a way which defamiliarises the way we commonly think about them. Although the stories are fantasies they deal with serious issues. For instance, in the story 'Preserves' a woman whose unborn child dies in uterus goes through the process of pregnancy with the support of her family even though they know the child will be stillborn. It shows how the idea of a new child forms so fully in the minds of the family its due to be born into and becomes part of their lives even before its arrival. So the story considers how to deal with feelings of mourning which can arise in this tragic situation common to many families. It's a different kind of magical thinking from what Kit De Waal describes in her novel “The Trick to Time”.

Another story which had a strong resonance for me was the titular tale 'Mouthful of Birds' which describes the perspective of a father whose daughter begins only consuming living birds and refuses to engage in discussions. He's separated from his wife and when the daughter is left in his care he witnesses her deteriorating health because he doesn't want to support her barbaric new diet. In one of the few instances when the daughter speaks she asks if her father loves her and in this moment there is so much unexpressed longing and sorrow as she desperately tries to find a way to control her crumbling family and situation.

The way Schweblin approaches her subject matter feels most poignant when it’s teased out in her longer stories. I felt some of the less successful and least impactful tales were also some of the shorter pieces such as ‘Butterflies’ and 'Rage of Pestilence'. In these it seemed like a central concept was compressed too explicitly into surreal imagery. Some stories also stretch too far into the oblique and become twisted up in a convoluted structure such as 'Olingiris'. Schweblin’s ideas come more alive when they are situated in longer stories such as ‘Headlights’ where brides left on the roadside congregate into a vengeful swarm or 'Heads Against Concrete' where a narrator’s violent impulses, emotional disconnection and racial prejudice are translated into “high” art. Better yet, some of the most eerie tales are where the central object of the story remains entirely unseen and unnamed such as a couple’s desperate attempts to “capture” a child in 'On the Steppe' or a village of vanished children in 'Underground'.

Samanta Schweblin & writer Valeria Luiselli in conversation

Not all the stories in this book are so outrageously bizarre. Some such as 'Santa Claus Sleeps at our House' and 'The Test' are so deeply ensconced in the narrator’s perspective that reality seems to be shifting around them due to innocence or guilt. Still others movingly capture people’s concealed emotions such as 'The Size of Things' where a rich, successful man steadily regresses while inhabiting a toy shop. Other stories grope at understanding the unknowable emotional condition of others such as a man that suffers from depression in 'My Brother Walter' or the story ‘Irman’ where the death of a man’s wife swiftly leaves him perilously helpless.

Overall I loved getting lost in these tales with their refreshing flavour for the absurd. They brim with a vibrant creativity and I admire the way they offer a warped counter reality to life.

Trickery by Roald Dahl

When I was very young one of my favourite books was “James and the Giant Peach”. I can still remember the vivid descriptions of James tasting a peach which made me crave the fruit for years to come. For some reason I never read more of his famous tales for children, but of course I was familiar with the stories from popular films like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’. What’s so interesting about Dahl is that his imaginatively off-kilter way of presenting the world shines through these dark fable-like stories that often involve some lesson about morality. I only became aware that Dahl also wrote stories for adults with Penguin’s recent publication of new series of books of short stories grouped under particular topics. It’s fascinating how Dahl’s distinct style still shows in these tales but they concentrate more on adult themes such as ambition, power, madness, cruelty and lust. I read the collection which centres around “Trickery” and hence each story involves a certain twist where different characters’ attempts to deceive cause them unexpected trouble. These play out in a series of creative and engaging ways which make them an absolute pleasure to read.

Although these stories are definitely for adults, Dahl’s sensibility is particularly suited to a child-like mentality. That’s not to say it’s naïve but it’s a perspective of wonder that shows how our imaginations continue to play a heavy role in our everyday lives even when we’re older. This can especially be seen in very short pieces that begin and end this collection. In the stunningly beautiful opening story ‘The Wish’ a boy plays a familiar game where he traverses sections of a carpet that has different coloured patches. He jumps between patches as if avoiding lava or snakes. Soon it begins to feel all too real and it’s as if his feverish imagination has overtaken his reality. Dahl demonstrates how this also occurs for adults as well in many different fascinating situations where characters believe their ingenious methods of trickery can manipulate things for their benefit. For instance, poachers try out a new method of trapping pheasants, a man in a foreign country tries to sleep with another man’s wife and daughter, a passenger displays unexpected talents, a couple attempt to conceal a diamond that unexpectedly comes into their possession. But our ability to control the world and other people often isn’t as strong as we think. Events go awry and we often get bitten back.

Episode from Alfred Hitchcock Presents inspired by a Dahl story.

One particularly interesting story induced a feeling of déjà vu for me. ‘Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat’ is about a philandering wife who attempts to conceal from her husband an expensive gift that her lover gave her. When I was younger I loved watching the short and clever series of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. As I was reading the story it started to feel increasingly familiar and I finally realized that this was one of Dahl’s many tales which was turned into an episode from this Hitchcock series. Dahl’s writing is well suited for Hitchcock since his stories so frequently involve a fun twist and this story is no exception. It’s also an example of a story which hasn’t aged that well or contains a method of writing that would fall under greater scrutiny today. It begins with a paranoid rant about the deception and greed of women which is obviously meant to be satirical. But occasionally the language Dahl uses for discussing women or people of different ethnic identities might come across as insensitive or cringe-worthy to some modern readers – particularly in the story ‘The Visitor’ which contains a lot of degrading references to Egyptians and Arabs. It’s true that these are all made through the subjective perspective of a particular character so can’t necessarily be attributed to Dahl’s point of view. But they are used in the structure of the story to create a feeling of menace and it’s this narrative strategy by the author that comes across as somewhat xenophobic. I’m sure the tone of this writing wouldn’t have mattered to most readers at the time it was published but it seems worth pointing it out now and stating that it’s mainly confined to this particular story in this collection.

I think this all adds another interesting element to the stories about how fear and prejudice can play into the way adults can imagine illogical threats coming from people and places outside their experience of normality. When writing about this its only right for Dahl to bring in people’s complicated opinions and prejudices as long as its done in a way which still respects the humanity of all the characters rather than just as a means of serving the plot or making a cheap joke. Regardless of these issues, it’s easy to enjoy these stories for their ingenious ways of showing how people can entrap themselves in sticky situations when they consciously attempt to deceive. Sometimes I could guess what the twist of the story would be before it happened, but part of the pleasure in these types of tales is anticipating how it might play out and then seeing how things are actually resolved in the story. I think Dahl’s fiction is particularly suited to being read aloud so people can share in that anticipation as it unfolds. The tales in “Trickery” have sparked my interest in reading the other volumes of Dahl’s stories in this beautifully designed new series.