"Bristol short story prize anthology volume 14"

The best of 2,545 entries from the 2021 competition.

• Cake for the Disappeared - Chile. When her son disappears, a mother obsessively makes cakes. Her husband opens a cake shop. It does well. A nearby soldier camp/HQ complains that they can't cope with all the deliveries and dumps cakes outside the shop. The shop claims they're not delivering them. The mother goes to them and complains, saying she'll only leave when they tell her where her son his. "Where is he?" she asks. The final paragraph is "Forty-five years later we're still asking the same question". I'm not convinced that it should be in the anthology. It won 1st prize.
• Sifters - In the USA the narrator sifts through old photos with her senile grandfather who doesn't recall her name but can still beat her at chess. At the end she imagines what would be a perfect life with him - for her as well as him - choosing the good things from their past. I like it. It came 2nd.
• I Don't Know What I've Lost - The narrator (in a lesbian relationship) has a sick baby and a mouse in the bath. Then a tortoise and a sloth appear. She meets a lady on a bus who has a tortoise too. She says it's a grief tortoise - she misscarried. The narrator kills the animals. They re-appear. She realises that the animals represent not greif about losing someone else, but about herself. I'm not convinced. It came 3rd
• Donut, Paper Napkins and Hope - Mumbai. Street kids selling napkins to drivers queued at red lights, etc., some with hearts of gold.
• Miss A Up the Hill - Konnie, 94, lives alone and is difficult with carers. She carries a wartime letter from Gordon, a wartime boyfriend. Gordon had married her sister. The marriage had lasted 50 years though Konnie's sister was serially unfaithful. Konnie thinks Gordon would have been much happier with her, and mistakes young men (carers, neighbours, etc) for him. No.
• The Hermit - a London rough-sleeper has a good day after a bad start, ending by camping in a new tent eating sausages in a forest.
• Speck - One of those stories where the dialogue is, you know, working class like, but the thoughts of the characters are lyrical. It's a literary artifice that I struggle with. "Everything takes on a glint of fire" thinks the first person narrator who also thinks "When Mum said the new house was a jewel carriageway, I hoped fpr sapphires or emeralds. But there are only kabab shops and dead flowers tied on lampposts". Kids work out the sacrifices necessary to get the friends they want. A neighbour takes photos of kids
• Sink Rate - She watches a plane crash into the sea. She thinks she saw a face at a window of the seat she originally had booked. I like the style
• Unlikely Goals Worth Pursuing - He's worked 2 years at a company keen on buzzwords. His son goes on a video game rehab course. His wife leaves him. I like the style.
• A Mouthful of Nymphs - Sophie lives in NY and has a boyfriend from Queens. "they pretend they are strangers, always meeting for the first time". She's interested in (identifies with) swifts.
• Love, Hunger - Jib, a postman ponders about delivering a letter to his ex? He had an affair with Doll? He thinks that Doll might have given birth to his kid? Doll wants a provider. But it's not clear: the style is both a strength and weakness -

  Jib titters, baaas; chuffed with his sleepy self. Loner maaan of the hunger field I'm OUT Oats or Feed or Graaas NOW untaaaangle me

• Jackie and Pad - 2 boys grow up together in Ireland in the early 1900s. When 19 and 14 they become lovers and get caught. The older one, a landowner, is sent abroad and returns with a wife. They go off to war together. The older one's invalided out. After the war they end up living alone, the young one nursing the old, who dies. The farmhouse is set alight. The survivor plans to die. Not my kind of story - too many fable tropes
• Because We Are Weak - Aggression between partners - neighbours, the narrators' parents etc. Her relationship involved silences. She frustrated with her life.
• Follower - 2 people escape from monitors through a cold landscape
• Life in a Bottle - A homeless man who's had a partner for 2 years digs a hole, lies in it, and gets her to kill him. This story is his suicide note put in a bottle beside him
• A Need for Shelter - A man moves into accommodation. An agent helps him. He goes to a series of interviews. He meets a helpful old lady. He takes in a bullied, injured dog. The agent says his interviews aren't going well (if he had a family it would help) and that according to the rules he shouldn't have a dog, but the agent understands. I grew to like it.
• This Is How You Lie - how to choose the size of the lie; how to mix truth and lies. In a small town it's hard though. Her teacher turns a blind eye until the lies are feeble. We discover that her mother's gone. Her father takes her to casinos (his "second job"). The story feels too short to me.
• The Carnivore Club - Women try to eat only meat. They're competitive. 2 of the women have an affair. One has a boy who's bullied. The other isn't surprised.
• On Drowning - The narrator's father is a farmhand. They have a meal in the big house. They return home to find that their mother's been saved from the river. Can't see much in it, but I think I don't understand the ending, so maybe it's ok.
• The Parasol - the narrator's parasol+spike blows away and spears a female neighbour dead. Her husband returns the parasol and asks the narrator if he could break the news to his son. When the narrator does so, the son kills him. Only 4 pages - the shortest in the book. Too short.

I'm wondering how much the judges strive for a short list which has variety. A magazine won't publish two stories similar to each other, but a competition list needn't have such a restriction.