This collection of nine not so short stories showcases Mark Haddon’s talent and imagination.
There is a variety of settings from the deceptively mundane – a south coast pier, a country cottage, a housing estate – to the startlingly exotic – a deserted island, the Amazon jungle, the planet Mars.
Ditto the characters who feature – men and women, young and old, rich and poor. As in life, they are people ordinary in one sense yet unique in others. Haddon places them in unusual situations that have some commonality; they are generally in jeopardy, which makes for tense and entertaining reading.
The prose flows well, the present tense narration giving an immediacy to the events. It is just as well that the length of the pieces enables them to be read in a single sitting of under an hour.
The collection is
highly recommended. If you think short story collections are not for you, this
anthology could change your mind.
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