Category: reviews

Review:Siege 13 by Tomas Dobozy

Often, I get sent books to review that I am so excited about. I get so excited I take photos of the cover and dream about when I can read it. Sometimes, I will have a cheeky first read of the first story or few pages and then put it away and then dream all over again.

With Siege 13, I felt a bit stressed. My friend, Terry is a real-life historian and when he picked it and started to flick through, wanting to read it and then commenting that he was surprised I was “into this kind of book”, I got worried. I enjoy history but fiction is better. I don’t really enjoy historical fiction and I like my covers to be fun and touchable.

Siege 13 is a short story collection all based or inspired around the Siege of Budapest, this was where the Soviet Union captured the Hungarian capital city of Budapest towards the end of World War 2.  The siege began when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and  German troops, was first encircled on 29 December 1944 by the Red Army and the Romanian Army. It ended when the city surrendered on 13 February 1945. It was a decisive victory for the Allies in their push towards Berlin.

That is the history part over and in fact, there is no need to worry yourself about the above details for I was much relieved when I started reading the first story The Atlas of B. Gorbe. It’s the title that didn’t attract me and that is a shame as the story was immediately different and contemporary and I was hooked. I spent my whole time exclaiming to anyone that would listen( Read, Simon) that this book was brilliant and that I had been judging it by the cover and that it wasn’t boring like some historical fiction can be.

That is the beauty of this book. Each story is inspired, hugely or loosely connected to the Siege of Budapest, war, its horror, aftermath, life and death. It’s all there. The narrative style stays consistent throughout and Dobozy writes history as fiction. Each story sheds a spotlight on the human condition, the relationships we form and how war can shapes them for generations to come.

The stories are either written directly in Budapest during the Siege or in Toronto where an exiled community live, trying to get away from the past.

My favourite story was “Rosewood Queens,”a girl tells us about his father’s new girlfriend who is called “Aunt Rose”. She is a strong and fascinating character. She had a strange habit, she goes from shop to shop buying only the queens out of chess sets; a sort of regaining of herself, where  she makes the chess set she leaves behind worth nothing. The narrator’s father loses out in the end because of his inability to communicate his feelings and let go of his past. The ending is perfect-

There was nothing, of course, and had never been, only two queens desperate for the affection of an absent king, trying to conjure him into existence and losing each other along the way.

What can be challenging for the reader is the disjointed nature of short story collections, Dodozy solves this by using the common theme or event of the Siege and the war. He shows how its effects could be subtle or more apparent with some stories barely hinting at it. He writes in an easy and unobstrusive style which is immediately accessible to the reader.

Siege 13  can be purchased at amazon here or at the publishers, Milkweed Editions here. You could grab it on kindle too but you already knew that.

 

 

Tea at the Midlands by David Constantine

This set of short stories has probably taken me the longest to read and to review. That is purely because they are packed with the kind of stuff that you need a breather from, a couple of a days or even a week.

David Constantine is a British poet, author and translator and most recently he won the Frank O’ Connor Short Story Award where Tea at the Midlands was pitted against some strong writers like Deborah Levy and Black Vodka, which I reviewed recently here.

Tea at the Midlands is a hard but a freeing read once completed. Some stories demand more from you that others in the collection, for example Charis, a story about three siblings and the fall out after one of the three kills themselves, all siblings are mature in an old age. It is most depressing to think of older people thinking this way yet we know they must do as these are thoughts of all ages.

Most of David’s stories are from a more mature angle, like Alphonse, a fun loving and energetic story about Alphonse, the shape shifting pensioner who keeps changing names and identity to escape being confined to an awful old people’s home by his family. We cheer Alphonse on to the glorious end where he “sails into the south” with a couple on a barge.

In the story The House by the Weir and the Way, two elderly ladies, Odive and Sabela live in an ageing house. They are going downhill physically and when Odile gets sick, a chink of hope comes in the form of a young lodger. This is a beautiful and universal story, a future that we will all relate to and hope to emulate their energy.

In Lewis and Ellis, we have a condensed version again of the same type of relationship, two elderly men called Ellis and Lewis share a quiet bond but it is only when Ellis is diagnosed with a terminal cancer, the strength of their relationship is highlighted. Ellis has left Lewis all of his classics, his books, his memories and the theme of fiction as power is really brought to the equation.

But, some read so beautifully that they seem as if they are whispers of entertainment. But, of course not one of David’s stories could be called  mere entertainment. Each line, paragraph and page is plumped with meaning, classical references and evocative representations of the landscapes. The power of nature and the way a landscape or the open fields or sea front can untie a person comes through in all of these stories. David is also a well-known poet, this shows in his choice of language and imagery throughout remaining meatier than the average story. He also uses a modern style of not using the apostrophe and allowing the characters’ actions and dialogue to drift in and out of the narrative. This can be taxing on the reader but there is pay off for the patient people!

My stand out stories would be An Island, this is a long, short story, which I do enjoy when mixed into more shorter ones. A sad and moving story where nothing much happens but a former monk moves to a remote island. We feel his past and his turmoil. He writes and reads alone. He is reluctant to let anyone in and thinks constantly of the past. The island itself is made up of people leaving and returning and we sense he too will be heading that way. David’s use of poetic in nature is present especially in this story as it is written from a first person narrative in a diary format. We see the inevitable end or at least we think we do.

Each and every story is gelled together by the power of narrative, imagination, fiction, stories or poetry. The power of telling a story is illustrated time and time again and I found this wonderful to be able to piece together the many puzzles David leaves for you. His imagination and his characters have no boundaries, they are all complex and pushy, they are all difficult. If you enjoy a story that will linger on your mind so much that you just have to read it again, then Tea at the Midlands is for you. I thoroughly enjoyed the collection and can see why he won the Frank O’ Connor and the BBC National Short Story Award. Although, there are many stories on a more mature age group and the relationships that they have, David gets the youthful couple as well, he analyses people and the struggles and pain they go through, regardless of their age or where they are. It is a painful yet moving collection. Get a copy, read some slowly and put it away. Come back to it again.

Tea at the Midlands is published by Comma Press and you can purchase a copy of it here and also listen to him read some of his stories too. You can also purchase it in hard copy or kindle on amazon here and at audible for the audio version.

David will be reading at the upcoming Cork International Short Story Festival in September. It should be a treat.

 

Review:Bloodlines by Joyce Russell published by Mercier Press

Joyce Russell released her set of short stories, Bloodlines last year at the Cork International Short Story Festival. She is quite the interesting character; Born in  North Yorkshire, a  journalist and writer. She is also gardening correspondent with The Southern Star.

She had been writing stories for over a decade and this is the part that fascinates me most. Stay with me on this one.

At the back of the collection, a list of Joyce’ accolades are given. She has been shortlisted or won many prestigious short story competitions. From Fish Publishing, Sean O’ Faoilean, Francis Mac Manus, Bridport Prize and the Real Writers competition.

The collection is called Bloodlines and the themes are unmistakably centered around family, blood connections, maternal, paternal, the child and the I, the innocent and love between all of these things. I am unsure to whether Joyce was working to a collection as she sent stories into magazines or competitions but these themes must have meant everything to her writing life as each story shines clearly with them.

It is wonderful for the reader to have an implicit connection of the themes. Some short story anthologies take more to work out while others have little to connect the writer’s voice and his/her motifs.

But, most strongly what comes out of these tales are the female voice as a child, a teenager and an old woman. Joyce writes mostly from the first person and pulls off the difficult child narrative again and again, without once failing.

Joyce is a lover of nature and this glistens throughout, she is an image maker but a simple one. She does not use demanding vocabulary unless the story demands it.

In Blood Red is a story of a teenage narrator and her mother. The narrator cannot communciate what she needs to her mother. Her mother has a way of dealing with big issues in life, mostly just to ignore.

She puts her hands over her ears or sings when bad news comes on the radio. The twin towers are still standing in her head.

The conflict happens when the narrator gets herself into a trouble that she feels will need an honesty her relationship with her mother does not share.

Some people say that their mother is their best friend, but I know they are wrong…There is no way I could talk to her about anything else. It’s so easy to hide what people don’t want to see.

But, the mother comes good, in the end and deals with the potentially life-wrecking situation in her own way. This way suits the daughter and mother as this is their life and there way of dealing with challenges. The reader will judge but will agree with the mother by the end.

In Walking Backwards, the story reflects on the most important thing in life. This story is about the protagonist, a young girl and her mother. There has been a loss. The father has dies some time ago and there have been changes in the way the protagonist sees her mother and her life. She is now a lonely child that travels on the same bus route every day, avoiding school, avoiding the real problem at home. She ruminates about the last day on earth constantly to the point that the reader may be lead into thinking something morbid is going to happen. Joyce twists the story at a gentle angle and the ending does not seem forced or as if a trick has been played on the reader. It seems natural.

Though, this collection is predominately proud of its maternal and feminine theme, Joyce also features stories that go away from this female theme. In Light, thought and Evelyn, we see the quirky side of Joyce’s style come out. Evelyn works in a restaurant of some sort and she dreams every night of creating the world from scratch, like a deity. In Comparable, identical, One and the Same, we look into a world of isolation in the school yard and meet a girl who has a father she is ashamed of. She is aware of herself and her family and their difference in the world. She is sitting in the car, ready to go into school, her father lies snoring beside her.  A universal theme of cliques and isolation is dealt with in a light and speedy way as she looks out and observes the girls going into school.  We see the awfulness of those girls who

wear trainers. Some have blank, clonky shoes with fat heels. She knows about sets from maths. the clonkies are a set. The trainers are a much bigger set. the two don’t overlap.

Lilli has it figured out quickly and the story ends as gracefully as she does.

The stand out story, personally, is Changes of Light. A story about a piece of land, like every good Irish short story! A daughter and her father look over the land and house that she is about to buy. This is where Joyce’s strength is shown. We see the landscape through each character’s eyes.

 

I knew he was seeing small steep fields where  a sheep could break a leg. I could see his gaze scouring for topsoil, trying to spot one small place where a hayfield might grown.

We hear what they are thinking and feel inclined to take sides, we empathise.

I wanted my father to see what I saw. I wanted him to fall in love with the high clouds and the sweet taste of the pure air as it entered his lungs.

Good story telling needs to get the reader to feel and connect with their characters and in Changes Of Light, this is done without sentimentality.

There are sixteen well crafted stories here, blending the full spectrum of emotions and feelings that come with being part of a family or a parent. This is a collection that will not age and will stand up well to time, binding the generations together.

You can buy Bloodlines from excellent bookshops, Mercier Press directly or from amazon a ebook or paper.