About the Book
In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.
With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems . . .
Format: Paperback (240 pages) Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 23rd May 2024 Genre: Short Stories
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My Review
This was a book club pick and almost without exception members enjoyed this engaging collection of short stories. For many, this was their first time reading Kate Atkinson’s work.
From the very first story the reader is immersed in a world where unpredictable things happen but often in the most everyday of situations, such as in a Waitrose supermarket in the opening story, ‘The Void’. Even when you’re dead, as in ‘Blithe Spirits’, it turns out there are rules of time and place you might not expect.
I loved the interconnections between the stories some of which are so ‘under the radar’ you might only pick up on them on a second reading. My favourite involved an 18th century patterned wallpaper. One character, Franklin, appears in a number of stories although his life does not necessarily follow a linear pattern, alluding to the final story, ‘What If?’.
One of my favourite stories was ‘Spellbound’ in which a fairy tale is combined with a depiction of the stresses and strains of contemporary family life, and whose last line filled me with delight at its cleverness. There are some memorable characters, such as the eponymous heroine of ‘Shine, Pamela! Shine!’ who the author manages to make both a figure of fun and someone for whom you have sympathy. The only story I didn’t care for was ‘Existential Marginalization’ but only because I found it genuinely creepy. However, other book club members who don’t mind dark aspects to a story loved it.
As well as all the clever interconnections, there are some recurring themes including motherhood and the environment. The latter is most obvious in the story ‘Gene-sis’ (superbly clever title given what unfolds) in which the damage humans wreak on the planet is seemingly beyond even the Creator to prevent.
normal rules don’t apply (including of punctuation) is a really enjoyable collection of short stories whose myriad interconnections means it’s best read as one continuous whole rather than dipping in and out of individual stories. And it’s a book that would definitely repay rereading to pick up all the little connections between stories you missed first time around.
In three words: Playful, inventive, entertaining
Try something similar: In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler
About the Author
Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. Her most recent novel, Shrines of Gaiety, set in the aftermath of the First World War, is a Sunday Times bestseller. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
Her three critically lauded and prize-winning novels set around the Second World War are Life After Life, an acclaimed 2022 BBC TV series, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award) and Transcription. Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC TV series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky.
Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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