There are quite a lot of adjectives on the back of Carolyn Lewis’ stylishly packaged short story collection, Some Sort Of Twilight, all proclaiming to describe the writing inside, almost none of which I agree with – “heartbreaking”, “outrageous”, “funny”, etc. From the write-up, you’d think this was a book by a modern-day Roald Dahl, but really these stories are at the opposite end of the spectrum – not flighty, fanciful, or full of themselves, but simple, nuanced, taking place in domestic settings, with characters we easily recognise.
There wasn’t one laugh in Some Sort Of Twilight, for me, nor anything mildly outrageous; rather, there was the familiarity that comes from solid and steadily drawn sketches of everyday people, places, and situations. True, one story does offer up a sort of magic realism, in the tale of a woman who finds she can fly; but otherwise, characters keep their feet firmly on the ground. There is, throughout this book, a similar sense of groundedness, of kitchen sink realities, of practical concerns and considerations. An old woman in a retirement home yearning for Jaffa Cakes is about as desirous as it gets; if men yearn, then they yearn to own a Mini Cooper S.
The stories are nice and easy to engage with, but they didn’t make me laugh, or cry, or shock me. I enjoyed reading, but if this book was a time of day it, too, would be twilight, perhaps, with an energy that’s just more mature and considered than many others.
Some Sort Of Twilight, Carolyn Lewis (Watermark)
Price: £9.99. Info: here
words MAB JONES