THE LADIES ARE UPSTAIRS By Merle Collins
Su Andi | January 3, 2012THE LADIES ARE UPSTAIRS By Merle Collins
Publisher Peepal Tree Press ISBN: 9781845231798 Price: £8.99
My expectations of a novel full of the sort of laughter that is concealed by a raised hand were not totally disappointed when I realised that this is a collection of short stories. As a poet, Collins is an exceptional storyteller. Even so, I found myself leaving the page in front of me to flick through the book trying to visualise a thread not only between the stories but also with the book title. Returning again to “Rain Darling” which begins the collection, I found myself unwittingly drawn into the life-disappointment of the main character, Rain, and then realised that Collins is toying with the phrase what is really myth and what is fiction.
In small places, on small islands, gossip can easily become historical facts that labour on in the lives of the innocent and can release the guilty to foul again.
Whilst women take the first chair in the majority of the stories, men too are bewitched and confused by life and its shadows - so it is best not to read by candlelight.
SuAndi
