The Short Stories you should be reading now: Saying Dirty Things in Regional Accents by
Saying Dirty Things in Regional Accents by Neil Campbell (Salt £10.99, 128pp)
Short, sharp and scabarously funny, Campbell’s energetic, raw short stories head into the backstreets and byways of Manchester.
His swaggering and unsentimental style unspools societal ills and how they impact the lives of his characters.
Overcrowded care homes, homelessness, the decline of working-class culture are the staples of these insightful tales, as men head out on pub crawls, think about sex and their exes, and skive off work.
The women survive abuse, and head to the pool to swim half a mile as the sun shines through the glass roof like a glimmer of hope.
Your Sons and Daughters Are Beyond by Rosie Garland (Fly On The Wall Press £11.99, 198pp)
Girls who burn brightly as comets, children whose animal nature is revealed in ‘pelts of rough hair, bright orange eyes, mouths bristling with pointed teeth’, and red plastic glasses that offer a fresh perspective on a stale relationship are the subjects of Garland’s unsettling, surreal tales.
Many of the stories here are very short – a page or two at the most – and likeably strange – transforming ordinary experiences into the extraordinary.
They add dark, fairytale twists to disturbing accounts of sexual abuse (Princess, Star, Brilliant) and violent crime (Cut And Paste).
The standout story is the winning, winsome Sadie Jones Taught Me Line-Dancing, where a cowgirl from Huddersfield dispenses words of wisdom and salient life lessons to a grumpy teenager.
A Kind of Madness by Uche Okonkwo (Verve Books £12.99, 224pp)
Small spites, deep hurts and lingering emotional slights beset the vividly drawn characters in Okonkwo’s outstanding debut. The ten insightful tales, set in modern-day Nigeria, thrum with tension and tenderness.
Okonkwo explores the tricky dynamics of familiar relationships; parents, children, school friends and spouses struggle with their feelings, and battle belief systems.
Think barbed gossip and mangled marriage expectations in Nwunye Belgium; a heartbroken, lonely nephew disappointed with his beloved aunt in Shadow; and rumours of demonic possession in a girls’ boarding school.
There’s humour in these stories, a fine appreciation of food and its preparation, neighbourhood feuds, and the Lagos weather, but this lovely liveliness is undercut by a deep melancholy, which lends the stories an aching sadness.