I think Granta has published a slightly extended version of this because Freight Books has gone (ironic that in the acknowledgments she bemoans the lack of short story outlets). There are 13 (previously unpublished?) stories - about 150 pages.
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Jellyfish -
Divorced mother takes 4 y.o. son on a trip to boost his confidence before he starts school. She needs
her confidence boosted too. Will he cope?
Green man, he said. Look. She had barely registered the fact before he was way head, striding onto the crossing without a second glance. That everyone would obey the rules, that nothing would happen if he did too, he took for granted. His whole world rested on a terrifying level of trust that shocked and moved her in equal measure.
Wait for mum, she called, knowing he was already out of earshot. Wait for me. (p.14)- "Monica pointed out ... the gulls hovering over the stern, then fished his sunglasses out of her pocket" (p.15) ("fished" in this watery context is an unfortunate choice)
- "they played I-Spy ... They managed two games straight, then he started kicking over the game's unwritten traces" (p.16)
Putting the straw in was a fine art by now, one he took pride in. She stood back, giving him time. First, he scratched the plastic cover over the little hole with one nail, then carefully scrambled the straw out of its sheath on the back of the carton. It took both hands, but he didn't drop the box. He poked the straw in, knowing from experience to stand back, avoid the spit-back of juice that was likely to result. This time, it didn't. He smiled, lipped the straw into his mouth and sucked, them stretched his boxless arm at forty-five degrees, hand balled into a fist. Superman. (p.18) - looking at you - too minor
- and drugs and rock and roll - a large cast of women in a psychiatric ward. Alma's looking for Michelle (15, on suicide watch). She finds Rhonda, drinking alone. She's the clear thinker - "there are different kinds of people end up in these places. There's people who who [sic] don't get better and keep coming back because they can't see how not to, and there's people who push themselves to get out and stay out because they're smart". Rhonda's 25 with 7 terminated pregnancies. In the night Victor calms Alma, gets her to swallow her meds.
- that was then, this is now (1) - too minor
- almost 1948 - Eric Blair's on Jura. He has a little motorcycling accident when no-one's watching. Too minor.
- that was then, this is now (2) - Less than 2 pages. I like this one.
- fine day - A husband calmly leaves his wife and child, creating a tone where expressing emotion would be a sign of failure. "Let's be reasonable", he says. The wife watches the opera "Madam Butterfly" and decides to change the locks.
- greek - On its second page there's "We'd been holed up in Ike's flat, drinking and having too much sex and laughing at nothing to think straight", which sounds tangled. On the last page there's "the knowledge I have not had a period for months now coils like a worm beneath my abdomen ... My stomach butterflies. Is it mine? Or that of another, smaller creature?" which has rather confused imagery
- turned - In a different style. The narrator is perhaps half-awake, with her mother working in the garden below her window. "Fishing up from the safety of sleep is never pleasant" confuses me on its first page. On its second, party balloons on the ceiling are "nosing the pale plaster up there like fish kissing the surface of a tank, needing to feed", which is better. The language heats up -
Look, she said. I could cut of my fingers and you'd think it was your due. Her hands are red with beetroot. Yes, he said. His face was one picture, not shifting. I could cut off all my fingers, she said, and pile them on a plate. Her knuckles dripped on the lino, audible. She had lipstick on her teeth (p.99) -
The curtains are open, showing grainy clouds, an edge of a full moon shedding light like a faulty shower. It sprinkles the little room finely, leaves nothing untouched. Moonlight. Light from the Moon. From so far away, it's cold by the time it reaches. (p.100)
- burning love - collecting then burning the possessions of a gone/dead lover/mother. Mostly a list, but a good list.
- fittest - My favourite. Set by Loch Ness.
- opera - I like this too. First we meet Lola singing opera in the bath, then Michaela, a 15 year old who's sharing her flat for free, having just come off a boat. Lola tells fortunes.
- romantic - Short, dense description of bar meal chat.
- distance - A woman whose mother killed herself realises she's over-protective to her son, and distant from her husband, so she divorces him - a kind of self-sacrifice. She becomes detached from her son. At about 40, after a health scare she goes to live on Jura. One night, driving perhaps too fast she hits a stag. Probably doesn't do quite enough given its length.
I wasn't convinced by the earlier pieces but by the end I was nearly won over. There are far more mothers than fathers.
Typos - "people who who don't get better" (p.45), "puled up" (p.54), "hauled out cushions out by the ears" (p.109), "and and turned" (p.110), "it needed less people" (p.118), "Michael" (should be "Michaela"), (p.129), "Godknew" (p.166).
Other reviews
- bookmunch (she uses her allotted pages to carefully consider an instant in time or a state of being, to dig down, rather than wide, meaning that the satisfaction derived from these stories is less that of situations resolved and more that of situations recognised. For all her exactitude of imagery, her work lingers as an impression of a mood. ... One of the stand-out pieces is ‘and drugs and rock and roll’ ... Galloway’s true gift isn’t the clever assemblage of simile, but the ability to find the truth – the best possible truth – in the most tired of scenarios.)
- Jabberwocky
- Stuart Kelly (This new collection revisits many of the themes found in the novels, and to an extent rewrites and reworks her interest in them. ... One of the key techniques of "The Trick Is to Keep Breathing" and "Foreign Parts" was to chart how various texts – women’s magazines, guide books – constrict rather than liberate their readers. Curiously, it is the men in this collection whose mouths are full of hand-me-down phrases ... The parent-child relationship runs through this collection ... Although in terms of design, Freight have improved markedly (there are still a few irksome typos), this book is short but not slight, though inflated by wide margins and a full page grab-quote preceding each story.)
- Allan Massie (She is adept at entering the minds of her female characters, and also children’s. Her men are portrayed from outside, as seen by women. When she attempts more than this – a story about Orwell on Jura, for instance, she is less persuasive. ... Inevitably, not everything succeeds. Galloway takes chances. Her way of writing is hit or miss. [‘Almost 1948’] is ... Miss, not hit, pretentious miss, and the story never recovers. At her best, Galloway lets you see the world in a different light, from an unusual angle, making familiar things strange. This is her special talent, and it is a rare one. She has sympathy for women whose lives have taken the wrong turn, and persuades the reader to share the feeling. She speaks up for damaged lives. Her weakness is common to gifted phrase-makers – a tendency to over-write, to lose focus in a blur of words. It’s the obverse of her rare ability to illuminate the everyday.)
- David Hebblethwaite
- Scots Whay Hae! ("Jellyfish" is, in places, reminiscent of Kelman, and of [Agnes] Owens, in that there is a mild surrealism on show that can catch you unaware ... The final story, ‘Distance’, is perhaps the most memorable of them all)
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