Shena Mackay

Undoubtedly the best thing I’ve ever read that was written by a seventeen year-old. The deadpan black humour and subtle anarchy of these novellas reminded me of Stevie Smith… and their uncompromising morality of the young Muriel Spark. It doesn’t entirely hold together, but I don’t think it’s meant to. There are subplots that threaten to overrun the plot and abrupt changes of tone and pace on every other page. I liked Schlumburger, in which a schoolgirl and a no-good older chap show more embark on a doomed romantic escapade around London — which makes it sound dull, when it’s anything but — a tad more than Toddler, about a malfeasant midget and his normally-proportioned girlfriend trying pathetically to abscond to the continent. But I’ll be reading more Mackay; this is seven shades of bonkers. show less

A dark tale which reveals the mores of adult deliquency towards raising children in the 1950s. Beautiful writing, with some astonishing metaphors and similies. Far from uplifting, but highly memeorable.

Little sparkless at the beginning but once I was drawn in I was held. Aching story lines were told in such a gentle, truly childlike way. Quirky and powerful.

A novel of country childhood, steeped in the heady scent of of Kentish meadows in spring, with the sharp undertone of rotting grass.

It is well written, though the aspects of the plot are oddly inconclusive. Bubbles of interests are raised, and left to go flat.

The adulthood of the narrator, which frames the events described, is dealt with too quickly, seeming rushed. I suppose however, that this does leave us free to ruminate on the main material of the novel.

The glories of childhood, show more deliciously described, are juxtaposed with darker realities. The fact that this does little to dim the poignancy of the narrators reminiscence is intriguing and the mark of a tale sophisticated in its simplicity. Its beauty is real, not idealistic fantasy, and thus artfully done. show less