Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 29 June 2019

"London Calling and other stories" by Jeremy Page (Cultured Llama, 2018)

Stories that range in length from a short paragraph to about 80 pages. In the long piece, "London Calling", Eustace is living in a squat with a school friend and 2 German girls who are studying Nietzsche and going round the house wearing only flip-flops. He has a pretty art student friend Amy. His 21st birthday coincides with the Charles and Diana wedding. He'd set it as a deadline for becoming a poet - his role model's Rimbaud. It's an entertaining piece which ends rather cryptically and suddenly - after a house party and having his first poem accepted he drifts (or dreams he drifts) to France with Amy.

Some of the other pieces also featured meeting people at certain times, and men who had no trouble with women. Pieces like "O Katia", "Greenwich village noir", and "The Woman Who Liked to Run" puzzled me because I couldn't work out what they were trying to be - vignettes? sketches? In "Ashes" I missed the clues that explained the ashes, but didn't feel the need to re-read the piece. "Pravda" is more challenging and interesting. Again, I felt I'd missed clues that would help with the plot - who spilled the beans and why?

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