Short stories from London Magazine and various prize longlists.
- "Never run from wild dogs" - The narrator sees a 14 year-old girl crying in the rain at a bus stop ("There's nothing on the horizon except for the girl"). The girl wants to go to the airport. A 15-ish boy gallantly tries to help. The 30-ish narrator helps. She recalls (but why?) a nature programme that said you shouldn't run away from wild dogs - if you can't stand your ground, curl up. She recalls her alcoholic mother. The girl's bus appears like "a crimson wave breaking over the horizon". The narrator recalls reading out her mother's eulogy, lying about how dependable she was.
- "Sylvia Plath watches us sleep ... but we don't mind" - It's 11pm. The 30 year old female narrator is in bed. Sylvia Plath (who killed herself at 30) is on a chair. The narrator's husband comes up, is angry that Sylvia's there, punches the wall. But no, the woman realises next morning, that was just a dream. She's pregnant. Her first pregnancy (which her husband hadn't been happy about) ended in a miscarriage. She recalls a video where Sylvia and Ted are interviewed, Sylvia saying that she thought a child would have disturbed their careers but it wasn't a problem after all. When the narrator was 9, her mother died. She tells her husband that she's pregnant, that she'll eat/drink more carefully this time. He goes for a walk. She wouldn't mind Sylvia returning to watch over her.
- "Drowning doesn't look like drowning" - A couple (the female's first-person PoV) are at an AirBnB in Havana. She's a jogger. During a snorkel trip with a cheap guide, the husband drowns. The story is interrupted by paragraphs about how the drowned react. At the end "Time to reflect, time to tread water ... I still have a scar on my leg from the coral ... You'd have to really know where to look to know it was ever there at all". Doesn't work for me.
- "The girl in the photograph" - A young widow with a 4 year old daughter, Iris, finds an old camera and gets the film developed. Though some of the photos were taken 30 years before, Iris claims she's in some of them. Her mother agrees. Not much for 15 pages.
- "And the world was water" - A couple who only met days before are on the roof of London's tallest residential tower - the only people left as far as they know. The water level is a few feet below them and rising. They talk about their favourite food and wonder what to do when the water rises more. When she asks where they'll swim he says "We don't have to know where we're going until we get there. But we will get there." She thinks she "would have loved him even if we hadn't met in this way". No.
- "Tsuris" - A young Jewish mother living in London, pregnant again, married to trainee Rabbi, goes to a counsellor because she thinks she's a lesbian. She explains that in her strict society (raised in Israel and suddenly flown to London for an arranged marriage), lesbians have to marry - she's seen it happen and has advised other woman so. After, she decides she won't need another session, she feels better, seeing other Jewish mothers - "These were her people. She fitted in perfectly". So the session made her realise that even in permissive London there are many like her?
- "The boat" - It begins with "I died when I was seven". The narrator tells us how she died in the garden pool, speculating on the event. It ends 4 pages later with what her father thought when she found her - "I wonder if, to him, I was beautiful". No.
- "Damascus 5*" - Ali left Syria 3 years before. He was a head chef there. His wife and kids died - shot, drowned, bomb. Now he has a makeshift cafe in Birmingham - the Damascus. In the street people call him "Paki" or "refugee scum". He doesn't blame them - he blames the media. The narrator meets him at 8am on Saturday to prepare food with others who have many sad stories to tell. There's detail about the menus, the authentic food. In the final paragraph we learn that Ali's making the food for the homeless, and that his permit will soon run out. What then? No.
- "Below the line" - the narrator posts a story online, awaits replies. Their "index finger caresses the circular wheel of the mouse like a clit". She arranges to meet up with one of the repliers, saying she's researching into trolls. He turns up, she puts a knife between them on the cafe table and says "I'm writing about castration, I'm so glad you could contribute". 3 pages. I don't get it.
- "Elephants don't live in the jungle" - the narrator's staying overnight by her daughter (who's 4, a common age in this book) in a hospital. Acute asthma. Should be ok. There's not room for the father. The little boy opposite might have died in the night. She drops in on a music workshop for sick kids. The leader tries to develop a narrative to make the sounds meaningful, but a boy, Malachi points out that elephants don't live in jungles or eat bananas. So they just make noises. Everyone stares at Malachi, waiting for him to clash the cymbals. The best piece so far, though sick children are an easy way to provoke emotion.
- "Things my mother never told me" - The narrator when she was 5 was given a false leg by her mother, who said she'd marry the person who fit in it. The leg belonged to the unpleasant father. The girl's not interested. She leaves home early, have several lesbian relationships. When her mother dies after a short illness she keeps the leg to remind her of home.
- "Earnest Magnitude's infinite sadness" - Earnest (female, I think. 49) lives with a boring, undemanding lecturer, Philip. A sexless relationship. She cheers herself up by wearing bright clothes and visiting a nameless lake - "I watch one of the swans take flight - wings like two enormous yachts sailed by billionnaires through the ballpoint blue of the sky". She met a racist old lady. Her mother's strange. At the lake she sees green - "an algae-like green clinging to the bottom of a boat drifting in the shallows of a Cornish fishing village ... a stiff green, tinged with white, because of Sports' Day, and you get called up to leap over hurdles because you're tall ... the green of a bed of soft moss that you could lie down on to make love, to yourself or someone deserving". She falls in love with an oak. Then she's arrested but she doesn't want to give details.
Too many of these pieces have a predictable trajectory, with too little to compensate. The body count is high. I liked "Elephants don't live in the jungle", and "Sylvia Plath watches us sleep ... but we don't mind" is pretty good. "Never run from wild dogs" and "Earnest Magnitude's infinite sadness" are interesting in parts.
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