A Lovely and Terrible Thing
by
Chris Womersley
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Imprint: Picador
Publication date: 23rd April 2019
Genre: Fiction / Short Stories
Pages: 288
RRP: $29.99 AUD
Format read: uncorrected paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher
Collections of short stories are hard to
review. There will always be stories you loved and others you didn’t.
My interest in short story collections
came after reading Roald Dahl’s Kiss Kiss, a
collection of truly macabre short stories. There is an element of
instant gratification with short stories.
A Lovely and Terrible Thing,
a collection of 20 short stories, although entertaining didn’t
quite live up to my expectations. The stories were strange and
unsettling centred around drugs, mental illness, death, loss, family
and relationships. Womersley’s characters are quite often bereaved,
a loved one simply missing without explanation.
The
stories will leave you with unanswered questions as he leaves the
endings hazy, you are left to imagine what happens next. As is the
case with my favourite story, The House of Special Purpose,
where a couple’s son-in-law is
left locked in a backyard compound he helped his in-laws build.
As you
are left to read between the lines it is quite often what is not
spelled out in the story that is most macabre.
A Lovely and Terrible Thing will
appeal to readers who already enjoy anthologies and those who are struggling to concentrate on a full length novel.
My rating 3/5 🌟🌟🌟
 |
| Photo credit: Goodreads |
Chris
Womersley's debut novel, The
Low Road, won
the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. His second novel, Bereft,
won
the Indie Award for Best Fiction, the ABIA Award for Literary Fiction
and was short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, the Gold Dagger
Award for International Crime Fiction and the ALS Gold Medal for
Literature. His third novel, Cairo,
was
longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award. Chris's short fiction has
appeared in Granta,
The Best Australian
Stories, Meanjin
and Griffith
Review
and has won or been shortlisted for numerous prizes. He lives in
Melbourne.
This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge
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