A5, 28 pages
(cream and navy).
$6
What
qualifies as terrible? Quite a lot of things, I should imagine. The lack of
politics taught in Britain’s schools? The internalised gender divide? My
colleagues’ insistence on discussing nothing but Love Island for the past two weeks?
All are different flavours of terrible.
Kelly
McClure’s stories certainly aren’t terrible, which led me to the conclusion
that she must be the sort of person whose modesty is so extreme that she would
actually take the naming of her anthology as a weird opportunity for
self-deprecation. Slightly bemused, I began to read, and then I got it – perhaps
it wasn’t the stories that were terrible, but the characters.
A
sadistic rancher, an imperfect mother, an extreme introvert. In truth the
characters’ personalities are scattered all over the morality spectrum, and it’s
difficult to judge whether each of them are good, bad or other.
One
of the interesting qualities to McClure’s writing is that her stories feel more
like scenes, the reader is placed into the characters’ lives and just as they
begin to feel like they know them, they’re whisked into the next story. This
anthology seems to be less about providing the reader with entertaining
stories, and more about creating a feeling of kinship with the characters (whether
that be positive or negative). It’s an interesting read and skilfully written –
these six stories will play on your mind for a long, long time.
You
can get a copy of Terrible Stories from
Kelly McClure via Budget Press here.
Review by
J.L. Corbett
