Heading Inland

I come to Barker's short stories, after having read her award-winning novel Wide Open. I thought that a wonderfully quirky, superbly crafted piece of fiction, and I began to collect more of her work for future reading. After reading these stories, if I didn't know I was in love before, I know now.

These imaginative stories are equally quirky, some laugh out loud funny, but always includes a healthy, wry peek into the humanity of her often off-beat characters. A rebellious fetus, unhappy with the petty criminal mother he's being carried by, devises a plan to change her. A woman, dubious about the guy she's dating and about the thong she's bought for the occasion, finds it's more valuable than the guy when the car needs emergency repair. A show more guy sets free the live eels from a restaurant. A woman falls in love with a man whose buttons are done up wrong, though he is accused by another of using that old "three button trick."

What an imagination! show less

There's a real peculiar sensibility to these stories. Nicola is effective in creating a substantial glimpse into the lives of these strange beings and, though we cannot see what happens to them ten or twenty years from that point, there's a bit of a defining sense of the moments she brings us. In general, I prefer stories that sort of knock you over the head especially at the ending (like Flannery O'Connor's short stories) These are a great deal more subtle for the most part though it does have a couple of frantic scenes (like when a man is choking) but mainly the stories (some quite short) build like an unfathomable smile on one's face with an intelligent wryness characteristic of Barker.