One of Us is Lying is a volume of nuanced and largely linked tales concerned with love, loss, longing and betrayal. Sally Cline sees darkness and suffering beneath polished surfaces and glittering conversations. Several of the stories appear domestic with an outward harmony but misery or even humiliation lurk quietly behind suburban facades. However the bold passionate writing reminds readers of historic violence and ancient fears as well as the small disturbances of contemporary life. In the linked stories Sally Cline examines intertwined and complex relationships between her characters over a number of years. A secondary character in one story may become the central character in another. The stand-alone fictions have different protagonists but as lives and tales weave in and out there are subtle echoes and symbols that seem to edge towards stories already linked. The settings roam from quiet Greek villages, through the University cities of Oxford and Cambridge, into the bustling present of Halifax in Nova Scotia, back into the past of Nazi Germany. The actions take place in or around Scottish mountains, old fashioned mental asylums, Cretan cafes, and slow moving trains.
Conflict thrives in an exotic art gallery, a Harley Street abortion clinic, an old people's home and on several beaches. The characters are women and men, gay, straight, married, single, and every age from childhood to the 80s. We see children everywhere absorbed in family life. We see elderly clients shut away in isolated homes. Characters include railway passengers, celebrated lawyers and musicians, care home workers, librarians, artists, hospital staff, writers, private psychiatrists, amateur photographers, and professional journalists. Couples are examined and motherhood assessed. There is warmth and wit in the writing. Several of the stories generate a feeling of unease where there is desolation and dread but never dullness. All the stories show an intense focus on rhythm and three very short tales could be read as prose poetry.
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One of Us is Lying is a book of nuanced largely linked stories and a radio play concerned with love, loss, longing and betrayal. The passionate prose uncovers suffering and darkness beneath polished surfaces and glittering conversations.
Les mer
'One of Us is Lying is a charming collection of darkly funny and melancholy stories, mingling characters and themes, shifting the reader through tender layers of female experience.' A.L.Kennedy 'Poetic and painful, peopled by the lonely and the yearning, Sally Cline's stories in One of Us is Lying never take the smooth path, avoiding pat answers to pacify suffering. With the feel of a classic, Cline enchants with her beautifully-woven words, then breaks your heart in the way every great story should.' Tania Hershman 'Characters and relationships form and reform here like patterns in a kaleidoscope: Cline's troubled women spill their stories in incantations of rage, grief and longing.' Jane Rogers 'A beguiling collection of powerful stories. Be careful as you turn the page: it can be unexpectedly dark on the other side.' Romesh Gunesekera 'There is a shape shifting quality to this very singular collection of short stories (and radio play). Characters leak between the tales, sometimes obviously, sometimes more surreptitiously. Daisy, a strong and unusual character, recurs, but we soon recognise similar habits and mannerisms in other female characters. Within the stories too, consciousness and identities leak, merge and blur. Shared themes, emotional undercurrents, motifs and images link the stories and the cumulative effect of reading them in one gulp, as I did, is startling, bewildering, provoking, exciting, amusing and challenging. Cline has a playful and inventive relationship with language, and a sophisticated ripple of humour runs through this remarkable and original collection.' Lesley Glaister 'One of Us is Lying is a delectable set of short stories, each one quirky, unexpected and tender. Sally Cline reveals a deep affection for and understanding of the human condition, and has a touching ability to combine the momentous with the mundane; to understand how, in the midst of even deep tragedy, the nuts and bolts of daily life must go on.' Katharine McMahon 'Slyly funny and acute.' Salley Vickers
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780957307933
Publisert
2013-11-26
Utgiver
Vendor
Golden Books
Vekt
226 gr
Høyde
198 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Dybde
12 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
226
Forfatter