In the UK, the short story had its heyday in the first half of the twentieth century, but more recently there’s been a tendency to treat it with caution – an almost anxious feeling each time you start a new story that there’ll be characters you’ve never met, in unfamiliar scenarios. Like being invited to a party where you don’t know anyone. You don’t have the comparative safety of the novel where the author leads you gently by the hand from one chapter to the next, developing the narrative. But, in this age of soundbites and instant gratification, I’m happy to say the short form is quietly being resurrected as a flexible, relevant vehicle for narrative. As in this collection of accessible short stories from new indy publisher Retreat West.
Amanda Huggins is an experienced and widely-published fiction writer and has won awards for her travel writing but Separated from the Sea is her first full collection of short stories. Her skill at world-building makes getting to grips with new characters and new settings very easy for the reader – she makes you equally at home in the urban sprawl of Tokyo, in a lonely seaside town in Yorkshire or in a bar in New York. With just a few killer sentences she hooks you into a new world. There are some flawless little stories here – imaginative and concise, which are the basic requirements of a successful short story. Just a couple are less well thought out than others and would have benefitted from more redrafting, but in a collection like this I didn’t mind; like eating a packet of Revels (I may be in a minority here) the pleasure is always heightened by knowing a few of them will be the ones you don’t like (chocolate peanuts in my case).
Themes include: decisions made then abandoned, women leaving men and branching out on their own, failing relationships, loneliness, dealing with grief at losing a father, and other losses. The sea as in the title story features in several of these richly-imagined stories. The writing is taut and no word is wasted. In Already Formed a woman dealing with the end of an affair finds out the baby she’s hoped for is ‘not even a line on a pregnancy test.’ The Last of Michiko shows a widower gradually coming to terms with his loss: when a friend gives him a jar of what she claims is his wife’s homemade bean jam ‘He knew it was not Michiko’s; he knew it was a deception. But he understood it was meant as a kind one.’ And in Edgware there are beautiful images from the narrator’s travels: ‘silk scarves billowing like jewel-bright parachutes.’
These entertaining short stories are perfect for a summer holiday, a short commute or for your bedside reading.
