Nicholas Royle (2) (1963–)

''After the rain, the last of the daylight came riding over Mynydd Mawr with the crows. The mountain choked on torrents of white water and the bracken smelled of its colour. From the shadows of the sycamore tree, the old horse emerged and nibbled at the edges of the puddles. The world had awakened again just in time for dusk.''

One of the best volumes of the series. These are my favourite stories in the collection.

General Impression of Size and Shape (Rosalind Brown : An adultery leading to break - up, narrated within the context of birds and their symbolism. A story written in haunting language.

When the Nightjar Sleeps (Andrew Michael Hurley) : A young boy is haunted by the death of his father and the mysteries of the moors.

The Sea In Me (Krishan Coupland) : The whimsical, bittersweet story of a young girl who tries to survive her mother's fixation on her future career. A tender tale, told in the distinctive, gloomy British style I adore.

Safe (Vesna Main) : A violent, yet extremely poignant story of abuse and revenge

Never Thought He'd Go : Four youths must face the consequences of the tragic mess they've created.

Later he heard of men seeking him by the fields and the canal, all the way to the river. It was lugged up with leaves, rotting pieces of wood from old boats, heads of elderflower glowing their clouds of white, cartons, dust, shadows and leaves, floating downstream.''

The Wind Calling (Deirdre Shanahan) : An atmospheric tale with a Romani touch of first love, summer freedom and the dreams of youth that are seldom fulfilled.

Is-and (Claire Dean) : The best story in the collection. A modern twist to the legend of the Changeling. What a terrific short film this would make!

This Skin Doesn't Fit Me Any More (Eliot North) : A mysterious story of a family that hides more than meets the eye and a deeply disturbed boy.

Language (Daisy Johnson) : Daisy Johnson creates one more masterpiece in a story of infatuation, motherly loves, selfishness and the denial to move on.… (altro)

''Words are empty rooms when they enter into common usage. Some arrange comfortable sofas, a bookshelf and warm lighting within themselves. Others, those words and strings of words that are taboo, contain that many furnishings it's impossible to move through them.''
Still Life, Matthew Turner

In my opinion, the new instalment of Best British Short Stories edited by Nicholas Royle for 2023 was a rather mixed bag. Most of the stories lacked character and, frankly, the writing itself was disappointing compared to previous volumes. These are my favourite stories in the collection:

Islands by Miles Greenwood: The touching chronicle of a daughter who became a mother and her son.

The Nights by Briony Thompson: Haunting and mysterious, it finds the golden balance between Folk Horror and a contemporary, straightforward tone narrating the implications of being a member of a close-knit rural community. Exquisite!

Still Life by Matthew Turner: Love, loss and despair in a haunting account that hides more than meets the eye.

When We Went Gallivanting by Leone Ross: The almost satirical, yet poignant story of a block of flats that decided to start moving around written with unique spirit by Leone Ross.

Bonsoir (after Ithell Colquhoun) by AK Blakemore: One of the most mystical and cryptic stories I've recently read. You need to read this one.

Common Ground by Alison Moore: A seemingly innocent, albeit slightly annoying neighbour becomes a true menace for a woman who refuses to put up with his nonsense.

The Bull by David Bevan: A moving story of the unique bond between a daughter and her father.… (altro)

A review of Walls, by Gaie Sebold:

Wow, that was a weird trip.   This short story starts really strangely, and gets even stranger, as our protagonist, Chrys, who suffers from agoraphobia and can't go out, gets worse and worse to the point of having what seems to be a total psychotic melt down.

And then everything comes crashing down, and boom!   What an ending.

Ever more wonderful writing and story telling from Gaie, a master of the writing craft.   If you haven't yet read any of Gaie's writing then i really suggest you get started, it's real good fantasy for grown ups who love real good fantasy.

I've no idea what the rest of this anthology is like, i only got it for Gaie's story.   But if Gaie's story is anything to go by i may even get around to reading some more some time.… (altro)

Brit Shorts 2022
Review of the Salt Publishing Kindle eBook edition (November 15, 2022) released shortly after the original paperback (October 14, 2022)

[3.1 average rating, but bumped to 4 for the variety and selection]
Even if some of these stories weren’t really to my taste (literally & figuratively, one got into a sort of supernatural cannibalism and another into electronically extruded meat) I really appreciate the variety of writers and styles and topics which this annual collection provides. I noticed an interesting aspect this year that 3 of the stories used repetition of passages & phrases in a sort of mantra-esque fashion a la Gertrude Stein or early Stein-influenced Hemingway. I really enjoyed that.

The following summary includes individual ratings and story setups. Some of these stories are still available online at various journals and zines which were some of the sources for editor Nicholas Royle, and I’ve added several of those links where they were easily found.

1. Let Us Look Elsewhere by Mona Dash **. More of an essay which describes the stories the writer plans to write, without actually writing a story itself.

2. How You Find … by Sara Sherwood ***. Story of a life and relationships written in the form of listicles and sub-listicles with 1, 2, 3, etc. numbering and a, b, c, etc. sub-numbering.

3. Single Sit by Edward Hogan ****. A traveling salesman visits a single mother in the hopes of selling her a conservatory attachment to her house. A relationship develops and in the night the woman’s young son disappears while sleepwalking. This story won the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize for 2020/21 and can be read online here.

4. Offcomers by Rosanna Hildyard ***. A farmer and his daughter on their sheep farm are caught up in one of the Hoof and Mouth Disease outbreaks in the UK. The farmer blames the air-transmitted disease on “offcomers.”

5. Lammas by Uschi Gatward ****. A telegraphic telling of the Lammas Day Riots of 1892 with some flash forwards to later years with elderly survivors looking back on the events. This story also appeared recently in Gatward's own short story collection English Magic (2021, Galley Beggar Press).

6. Plain Speaking by Tony White ****. Two friends named Keats and Chapman (The names are presumably inspired by the Keats poem On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer) search for a pub to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of writer Flann O'Brien (1911-1966). This story was first published online at 3AM Magazine October 2021 and can be read online here.

7. Pebbles by Max Porter ***. Using a catapult two kids shoot a pebble at a car window and are reprimanded for it by the driver. Years later they are still haunted by the incident and about which of them was to blame for it.

8. square / recess / moon by Ben Pester ***. A worker at a company which is slowly going out of business is haunted by a recess in a room in his apartment. He wants to tell his co-worker about it constantly but the other also feels its spell too strongly and tries to avoid the subject. This story was first published online at Exacting Clam No. 3 Winter 2021 and can be read here.

9. Sarcophagus by Alice M (this author might be merged with an illustrator of childrens’ books) ***. Somewhat abstract story of being inside an MRI scan machine. It does have a reference to ASMR though, so it joins the list of #ASMRinFiction along with Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing.

10. The Comet by Sonya Moor ****. A television makeup artist meets French politician Simone Veil before the latter is to appear on a TV show talk program. She had herself benefited from the passing of the Veil Act which legalised abortion in France in 1975.

11. Sink Rate by David Frankel ***. A woman is disturbed for years after seeing a plane crash into the sea during her beach vacation. She had expected to be on the same flight until she switched to an earlier one.

12. Lick the Dust by Leon Craig ****. A scholar discovers a lost book box in an Oxford library by the Great Magus Cypriano which contains a Hand of Glory (the mummified left hand of an executed criminal) which can convey the power of invisibility. She uses it to torment her rival. This story was first published online at the White Review in September 2021 and can still be read here.

13. Culverts by Neil Campbell ***. People in a village are being told to evacuate in anticipation of a flood. Several people running businesses refuse to leave. Two of them are having an affair. A gut punch ending which isn’t fully revealed so you have to finish writing it yourself.

14. The Chicken by RZ Baschir ****. Somewhat bizarre story about a foundling being raised by a so-called ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ who regularly purchase chickens in bulk from a chicken man. The uncle only drinks chicken blood to survive. From the description of various food dishes this all takes place somewhere in South East Asia. This story was first published online at the White Review in August 2021 and can still be read here.

15. A Visit to the Bonesetter by Christopher Burns ****. In a dystopian society one partner in a couple is chosen for a required visit to a “bonesetter”, a psychological and physical torturer. This was a creepily effective metaphor for the trend in societies to give up privacy and personal freedoms for central authoritarian observation and control.

16. The Easement by Paul McQuade ***. A woman and her partner Josh move from Ann Arbor, Michigan to a farm in Arkansas. They struggle with a drought season and the woman becomes obsessed with a wall of rock stones which divides their property from a portion of the land claimed by the government as an easement.

17. New to It All by Seán Padraic Birnie **. A man goes from one relationship where his partner Niamh scratches to another where his partner Saoirse bites. It gets weirder after that and becomes a body horror tale. Not for all tastes.

18. The Meat Stream by Will Wiles **. A couple have gone through all the streaming channels and programs during lockdown until the man discover an unlisted channel which only broadcasts cuts of meat being grilled and sliced. Then the meat starts extruding from the screen… Again, not for all tastes.

19. Chicago Forecasts by Chris Vaughn **. Somewhat vague story told in flashes. Protagonist is working in the stock market and otherwise has a desolate life. They buy a bunch of stuff for their apartment in order to decorate it in order to fake showing a normal life when a relative visits.

20. Wild City by Sophie Mackintosh **. In a future dystopia, a designer and their supervisor take a trip to the wild city, an urban environment which is gradually returning to nature. There are inhabitants there and the designer is intrigued by the situation.

I read Best British Short Stories 2022 based on being introduced to the series in Best British Short Stories 2020 which was the December 2020 Book of the Month perk from my support of The Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers. 2022 is the 12th annual collection of the series which is published by Salt Publishing in the UK.

Trivia and Links
I can't miss this opportunity to plug BBSS editor Nicholas Royle's book collecting memoir White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (2021) which provides both entertainment and solace to other book obsessives. To understand the solace part, you should read this review by Michael Reilly i.e. "I'm not so bad, look at him!"

If you want to get a jump on 1 or 2 possible selections in next year's Best British Short Stories 2023, then it is worth looking into collecting the single story chapbooks from Royle's own Nightjar Press. Royle usually selects something from Nightjar for the BBSS collection as well e.g. No. 15 Christopher Burns' A Visit to the Bonesetter (2021) was first published by Nightjar.… (altro)