"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.)

"The Half-Life of Songs" by David Gaffney (Salt, 2010)

Over 50 Flashes, some from magazines I've wanted to be in - Flash Magazine, Litro, Riptide, Ambit, etc. I've liked some of the quirky, offbeat, undramatic samples I've seen from his earlier collection. Such pieces are going to be rather hit and miss, though by the time I reached p.30 I'd expected to have read a hit or 2. In the end

• I was impressed by "I Liked Everything" (though it's a rather atypical piece), "Remaking the Moon" - "They would smile at Mason in that sarcastic way people with an interest in local history have, then saunter off, trailing their fingers along his brickwork. It was as if Mason and his house were public property, like a puppy or pregnant woman" (p.48) and "Gelling".
• I liked "Music like ours never dies", "Spoilt Victorian child", "Portraits of insane women", "Is your thought really necessary?" (about thoughts becoming physical, producing their own landfill problems), "So much noise", "The Half life of songs" and "Junctions one to four were never built"

There were only a few repeated themes - art museums and pursed lips, love interest thrown in to add human interest. I think I mostly know what he's trying to do. I've written a few pieces not unlike these - e.g. when a "discount carpets" sign got old and became "disco      pets", etc. The Acknowledgements fill a page, so I suppose all these stories deserved book publication. And anyway, people wouldn't buy a prose book that had less than 40 pages, though they might buy a poetry book the same size and easier to write.

Other reviews

• TLS, Bookmunch, Gutfire Magazine, Flash Magazine, The Short Review, Whitehaven News
• Tony Williams
• Carys Bray