My brother drowned
“A woman came across the field, carrying the body of my brother, who had drowned.” – Dying in the First Person by Nike Sulway
How can we describe what gives us meaning? Why do words collapse when we try to express what we see and feel? Samuel is working on a translation of his deceased brother Morgan’s final work. He’s also failing in love, watching his mother die of cancer, and reminiscing. This is a deeply felt book, beautifully written.
Withering literature
“During my forty-three years as a community librarian I had the misfortune to witness the pitiful withering of that body of literature known as poetry.” – “Roankin and the librarian” from The Double by Maria Takolander
I agree with the literary critic Geordie Williamson who says most of Takolander’s stories in this collection combine “kitchen-sink realism with fairytale strangeness. Their only true uniformity, however, is in the disquietude each narrative provokes.”
Words in my head
“When I was three, I told my mum that I kept my words in my head, in a clear plastic bag.” – Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You (About This Magnificent Life) by Kate Gross
Kate Gross died on Christmas morning, two years after her cancer diagnosis – and not long before her six-year-old twin boys were to open their stockings. But Gross affirms life in this book: “These last years have been so strangely luminous, full of exploration, wonder and love.”
Silk pyjamas
“Walter got the silk pyjamas clearly worn. Dianne got the candlesticks.” – “Substance” from The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams
No one writes quite like Joy Williams. Her stories are quirky and penetrating. Her take on life is unique. And her sentences are strange and delicious. The stories in this outstanding collection span almost 50 years. She says we have made “an unutterable waste of this world”. So don’t read her work if you’re looking for a happy ending.
Love more, suffer more?
“Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.” – The Only Story by Julian Barnes
What do we know about love at 19? Investing everything, Paul is elated – defying convention and setting up a love nest with the older woman he adores. As reality sets in, it’s devastating. Paul discovers just how many “seemingly incompatible emotions can thrive side by side, in the same human heart”.
