SHORT STORIES
This is the Ritual by Rob Doyle
THIS IS THE RITUAL
by Rob Doyle
(Bloomsbury £16.99)
This is full of booze, books, sex and despair yet, despite the bleakness of its stories, skewered as they are on broken hearts and broken artistic dreams, Doyle’s cocky passion proves irresistible.
He writes with the confidence of a literary giant so it is surprising to find Doyle is a mere whippersnapper: a philosophy graduate from Trinity College, Dublin, sensitively bearded and only at the start of his career. His debut, Here Are The Young Men, won prizes, and his second book does not disappoint.
Here is a writer writing mostly about writing, or failing at writing, whose grim exterior landscapes — odorous Hampstead flats, mist-laden ferry trips across the Irish Sea, a deserted industrial estate — provide memorable backdrops for a series of heartening and humane interior struggles.
Doyle is as good as everyone — from John Boyne to Colm Toibin — says he is.
Sea Lovers by Valerie Martin
SEA LOVERS
by Valerie Martin
(Serpent’s tail £8.99)
Writing about writing appears to be all the rage. At the heart of Sea Lovers lies a long short story about Maxwell and Rita, pen rivals (and lovers for a brief moment).
Sashaying between New Orleans and Vermont, this story, The Unfinished Novel, is macabre and riveting, with a squalid death scene involving maggots and cats.
This immaculate collection spans Martin’s career from the tight and serious ambition of her youth, through a wittier, more playful phase investigating creativity through stories about music and painting as well as writing.
In a final section, Martin’s latest stories are gathered under the title ‘Metamorphoses’.Here she explores the human/animal dynamic in a quasi-mythological series including the strangely romantic tale of an heiress and a centaur. If this exceptional American author (winner of the Orange Prize in 2003) has passed you by, you’re in for a treat.
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE
by Helen Ellis
(Scribner £12.99)
Helen Ellis, a Southern belle from Alabama who worked in the Chanel offices as a secretary for ten years before ‘retiring’ to become a New York housewife, is, in her spare time, a successful amateur poker player on the U.S. national circuit.
Her short stories, previously published in quirky titles such as The Normal School and Hayden’s Ferry Review, display all the range and wit you’d expect from such a CV
Ostensibly about book clubs, paint colours and affairs, these stories are underpinned by every caustic product in the under-sink cupboard, resonating with sharp humour, latent ambition and a stealthy dose of imagination.
Required reading, I would say, for any stay-at-home wife who is beginning to lose her mop, as it were. Working girls will love it, too.
