"Aromabingo" by David Gaffney (Salt, 2007)

Flash and some longer pieces from Ambit, Lamport Court, etc.

Nothing ostentaciously literary. Even when stories didn't work for me, there were interesting details and twists. I liked the twists of "Art Movement" and "Through the medium of modern dance". I liked the idea of "All mod cons" though I wasn't so keen on the ending. "Still in box" puzzled me, as did "Only the stones remain". "Using the facilities" didn't have enough. "Chairs Missing" is interesting. "Mean picking" with its Dorian Gray influence, had some touching moments

Later in the book, some stories are over 10 pages long. Rather than padding the space with backstory and description there's more of an emphasis in plot. Sometimes 2 ideas that could each have sustained a Flash piece are combined. I think these stories are more consistently good than the earlier ones. The features I like in the Flash are here too.

• "This is about Dixie" looks rather like a merge of 2 short pieces - one about the secret lives of cats, and another about getting along with a tedious neighbour. The threads combine well - it's perhaps my favourite story, ending with For without boundaries how would we ever know where one thing ended and the other began?.
• In "Does anyone care for you on a regular basis" Carl starts being a counsellor. "Repeat, Reflect, Paraphrase" doesn't work. While counselling from home on the phone he picks up a manual at random, finding the contents useful - "You see, sometimes a system needs completely draining. Years and years of the same stuff circulating round and round causes, like, a build up".
• "Special pudding" begins excellently, has a slight dip in the middle while the plot's developed, then ends well.
• In "Guided by voices" Gifford is trying to solve a customer's computer problems over the phone. The customer's Anthony Burgess - a voice from the past? Burgess begins to haunt Gifford's life. An original and entertaining piece.
• "Gossamer" - In the evening Damien fakes being a cleaner at the place where he has a daytime desk job, hoping to to find out what his office colleague Emma thinks about him. He befriends Donny whose newly born grandson is in intensive care. There's a twist in the Donny thread at the end, but not much of an Emma twist.

Other reviews

• Melissa Lee (It’s not to say I was dissatisfied by the many arbitrarily challenged endings, but unsatisfied, yes. Gaffney has a knack of producing inner qualms in a reader so that he operates almost as a keen opponent as much as the story’s creator. And the humour is as black as only northerners know how, or feel the right to be offended by.)