Good news short story fans! Editor Paul Burston is back with a
second collection of short fiction from Glasshouse Books (the first
was Boys & Girls), and it's good. DIVA favourite VG Lee is in
fine form; her story Lucky Patricia, about a group of friends
meeting up for drinks, shows off her terrific talent for
characterisation and lovely comic timing. "Jan has a nice face. Her
eyes are her best feature. They are brown and warm and objectively
would look perfectly at home in a Labrador's head which is possibly
why Eileen the dog breeder took up with Jan in the first place." If
you have yet to discover VG Lee, now's a great time to do it.
Karen McLeod's Never Can Say Goodbye has a similarly witty
voice, though with a sad undercurrent as the narrator comes to a
realisation about her relationship; her's is a funny, slightly
shocking story. Stella Duffy's A Partridge in a Pear Tree is
written in a lovely mix of modern and archiac, poetic language as
the King of Spain's daughter visits (traveling from the past?) a
lover in modern London.
Of course there are stories from the men, too. Christopher
Fowler's Ladies & Gentlemen takes the form of a
thought-provoking speech on the subject of being a gay writer.
Burston's Enjoy Carioca is a honeymoon story with a twist; Mark and
Tom, newly married, invite a masseur back to their hotel with mixed
results.
At £10 for 10 stories, Men & Women is a great deal. Why not
support queer writers by buying a copy and heading for a sunny
patch of grass while the summer lasts?
Buy Men
& Women at divadirect.co.uk
