As always seems to happen with short story collections, I loved some of these while others didn't speak to me at all. Overall, though, there are some resonant scenes in this collection, even in those stories I didn't really understand, plotwise. I found the most effective stories were the shortest. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence.



Each short story is prefaced by a page or two about the author who wrote it. I read these after reading the stories, because they seemed more relevant to me that

As always seems to happen with short story collections, I loved some of these while others didn't speak to me at all. Overall, though, there are some resonant scenes in this collection, even in those stories I didn't really understand, plotwise. I found the most effective stories were the shortest. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence.



Each short story is prefaced by a page or two about the author who wrote it. I read these after reading the stories, because they seemed more relevant to me that way. It was surprisingly interesting knowing a little about the authors, and in some cases I’m left wanting to read their novels.



The Heroine reminds me of a Tim Winton short story in his collection The Turning. A teenage girl somehow twists things in her own mind to the point where she thinks it’s a good idea to set a house alight. Although I’ve just ruined the plot, you do see it coming, or something ominous. The suspense is beautifully done.



A Nice Place To Stay features a narrator who wishes only for the most simple things in life, and reminds me of a woman an elderly friend once knew, whose only mission in life was to have the washing on the line by nine o’clock in the morning. As explored in this story, lack of adequate ambition can sometimes be a dangerous thing.



I’d read Louise Please Come Home before, and the story had stayed with me. I think of this when I hear of a missing person on the news. I enjoyed this short just as much reading it for the second time — like most of the protagonists in this collection, Louisa probably rates highly on the sociopathic spectrum. The idea that your own family would fail (refuse) to recognise you after a lengthy absence is quite a terrifying one. At the same time, the unfeeling narrator gets her just desserts and so there is a satisfying kind of retribution at the conclusion of this story.



Lavender Lady is a nice example of a short story which has been structured around the lyrics of a song. It’s also a nice example of a story written around a colour (two colours, really), which might make a good writing exercise.



Sugar and Spice is the longest story in the collection and unfortunately this required some effort for me to get into.



Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree went in one eye and out the other. Perhaps I was too tired when I read it the first time. So I tried it again and the story still felt so convoluted that I zoned out. It was one of those complicated plots which all gets resolved and explained near the end, and I still didn’t understand it.



Everybody Needs A Mink is a deceptively simple story in which a stranger in a shop buys a very expensive coat for a dowdy woman who couldn’t possibly afford such a thing. The interest in this comes from the psychological effects that come afterwards. Is it really all that wonderful to receive a gift from someone you can never thank?



The Purple Shroud feels like a story that’s been done before, though maybe this was one of the first; an unassuming middle aged woman suddenly has enough of her pretentious artist husband’s philandering and decides to do something about it in a cold, calculated manner. Roald Dahl did something very similar in Lamb To The Slaughter, except I do think he did it better, because the leg of lamb eaten by the police officers was an interesting twist. Here, the main interest seems to rest upon the extended metaphor of wife as male-eating spider, which seems a little too obvious, and telegraphs the ending.



The Stranger In The Car at first seems to be a date rape story, which made me realise how long this has been going on, but it turns out to be something else entirely. Not entirely believable, either. It was rather lengthy and had a large cast of characters and I expended quite a bit of effort trying to follow the thread. I’m not sure I succeeded.



It was refreshing to read about a feisty old female protagonist in The Splintered Monday — someone who is shrewd enough to intuit that not all is as it should be after her sister dies. Not only that, but like a practised high school principal, she knows how to get straight to the truth.



Lost Generation was a bit lost on me and I read it three times before giving up trying to understand where the introductory paragraph fits, the bit about the teacher, and later about the school board meeting. I just couldn’t put this jigsaw puzzle together. Nonetheless, I offer a trigger warning for harm to a child — regardless of me being able to put the pieces together, the final image is a shocking one.



The People Across The Canyon is one of my favourite from this collection, partly, I’m sure, because of similar experiences: We live in the country, had a new family move in next door, and gradually came to trust them less and less. We had to ban our daughter from going next door, which was a shame. I’ve also had the experience of going to meet the school bus and having my daughter fail to get off it. All of these small and familiar anxieties coalesce and despite the workaday emotions this story evoked, I’m left wondering if this is the only supernatural tale of the collection.



Mortmain, like a couple of other stories in this collection, is about the triumph of an elderly person who others feel is so near to death that they can be used as a pawn in another’s life betterment plans. I still don’t understand the ‘giggle’, but it was a resonant touch.



A Case Of Maximum Need makes me wonder if people still use telephones for this purpose, or if the existence of the Internet has transferred some strange desires. I haven’t had a breather on the phone ever, I don’t think. Though I’ve come across characters online who probably would have been breathers if they didn’t get an anonymous outlet in cyberspace! It was nice once again to read about an elderly woman who is not as helpless as society would expect.

