'Mud: Stories of Sex and Love' Michele RobertsThe fourteen stories in Roberts' collection are a delight of language. The title story in particular is memorable because of Roberts' beautiful descriptive writing: 'Children want to eat the world. It's a way of knowing. Touch the world. Stroke it, grasp it, pick it up, cram it into your mouth...the field glittered, shapes of pale brown and purple and coffee and black broken up, gleaming like chocolate.'
In 'Tristram and 'Isolde' Roberts surprises the reader so expertly that a second reading feels compulsory (I can't expand on that as I don't want to spoil it), while 'Vegetarian in France' is a deftly written story and ends with pleasing wickedness. One of my favourite stories was 'Annunciation' which expertly sweeps along the arc of Marie's life, exposing the terrible dichotomy offered by the (false) choice to be either 'slag or saint' with no room at all for anything in between.
Read reviews of the collection here and here.
Read an interview with Roberts here.
I really want to read this one!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely worth a read. The language alone is enough to recommend the collection!
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