Forgettable Stories

[commonpeople1]

The Guardian Review Book of Short Stories by Lisa Allardyce

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This collection of short stories came as a free souvenir with the Guardian at the start of November 2011. Considering the calibre of authors included - Margaret Atwood, Rose Tremain, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - it's a surprisingly poor collection. The distinct feeling from the get go is that these are cast away stories the authors drudged up to let the Guardian use - the kind they would never dare use in a collection of their own. The one exception is Audrey Niffenegger's surrealist masterpiece Moths of the New World, which made me want to read more of her stuff (though I already knew she was awesome, based on the talk she gave on time traveling at the British Library earlier this year.) William Trevor, apparently the greatest living short story writer, opens the collection with the weakest story of the lot - a sentimental half-baked thing called An Idyll in Winter.

Most of the authors in this collection are also part of the Guardian's upcoming creative writing master classes, but I'm sure that's just coincidental...

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