JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

What happens when fantasy tears through the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?

In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. From a woman who lives in a house with all of her ex-boyfriends, to a toxic friendship built around a drug that makes you invisible, to an ancient ritual that might heal you of anything if you bury yourself alive, these and other scenarios reveal that the outlandish and the everyday are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly similar.

Ling Ma’s speculative short story collection Bliss Montage presents eight surreal stories exploring the limits of fantasy on the everyday.

A couple of my favourite stories are Los Angeles, G and Returning. Set largely in the confines of reality, there is a small tweak to each story that introduces fantastical and speculative elements. From a housewife who lives in a mansion with 100 of her ex-boyfriends, and a woman who crafts a short story that differs from how her mother remembers the documented events, to a story of two estranged friends reuniting over a drug that turns the user invisible.

“The conversation was smooth and friendly, all surface. I told him a bit about my job now, as a copy editor at a law association. He told me about dog walking, but mostly about his monied clients. He seemed to know a lot about them, their vacation homes and travels, their careers and connections.”

Across the course of the collection, explored themes include isolation, relationships, memory, abuse and immigration. And with women driving each of these stories, they take centre stage in each of these absurd realities and act as a haunting observer.

Ling Ma’s stories capture the ongoing trajectory of the plot and are less focused on the aftermath. We meet characters in the midst of the tension that builds in their life, and with such a calm nature to Ma’s writing, our attention is maintained throughout each story.

“After my roommate kicked him out, the phone would ring periodically in the middle of the night, back when we still had a landline. When I picked up, a voice would say, ‘I miss you.’”

Arguably, some characters feel too detached from their reality – they observe but there doesn’t seem to be much engagement with the actions or characters around them. We don’t gain a full sense of how the characters feel about their circumstances. Whilst the writing is stripped and observant, sometimes I would’ve loved a bit more interaction and understanding of the protagonists.

“But that wasn’t even it, not really. There wasn’t any defining incident that convinced me to finally stop speaking to Bonnie. More that, after college, I began to notice how she increasingly critiqued me, mostly with jabby comments about my body.”

Observant and taut, Ling Ma’s Bliss Montage is a strong collection of surreal and uncanny short stories. Accessible for reluctant readers and those who aren’t overly keen on shorter fiction. Readership skews 25+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Bliss Montage
Ling Ma
September 2022
Text Publishing

Everything Feels Like the End of the World by Else Fitzgerald

Each story is anchored, at its heart, in what it means to be human: grief, loss, pain and love. A young woman is faced with a difficult choice about her pregnancy in a community ravaged by doubt. An engineer working on a solar shield protecting the Earth shares memories of their lover with an AI companion. Two archivists must decide what is worth saving when the world is flooded by rising sea levels. In a heavily policed state that preferences the human and punishes the different, a mother gives herself up to save her transgenic child.

These transformative stories are both epic and granular, and forever astonishing in their imaginative detail, sense of revelation and emotional connection. They herald the arrival of a stunning new voice.

Else Fitzgerald’s short story collection Everything Feels Like the End of the World is a series of compact speculative fiction tales exploring possible futures in Australia – some settings don’t seem too far removed from our present life, but others are vastly different and set thousands of years into an unrecognisable future.

God, I really appreciated the brevity of some of these stories – at just 250 pages, this book has thirty-seven stories and they’re all just as rich and engrossing as each other. Jumping through different stories at quite a fast pace is actually a really refreshing read, so many short story collections have substantial (and therefore few in number) stories, and as a result, the pacing can lull a little in the middle. I loved the structure of this book and the order of the stories, which worked together cohesively across the course of the book.

“Out over the edge of the rooftop the reddish sun is sinking, its brightness so reduced from the smoke that you can stare right at it without hurting your eyes. At the far end of the roof garden shared by all the residents of the building, white sheets on the clotheslines flap in the smoky breeze – surrender of defiance, you’re not sure.”

Else’s specificity, particularly her observations of people and places – of interactions, feelings, and memories – are gems in the story, and one of the strengths of the collection. Her stories show you don’t need to use a lot of words to convey something beautiful or poignant. There is a strong personal undertone to the book, like we’re getting a strong sense of Else not just as a writer but as a person.

Each story explores elements of humanity and what it means to be alive, even when the world is ending – ie. even during times of disaster, we can still feel love and connection, nurture, all the while experiencing heightened levels of grief, heartache, and loss.

I also freakin’ love the cover of this book – the colours and the tone, as well as the title, make for a really beautiful addition to the bookshelf.

“His voice is tender but careful. Before the phone call to tell him what had happened, and to ask if we could come, we hadn’t spoken in a long while. My body trembles, the horror of the past few weeks seeping over the walls I’ve built inside me.”

With each story moving forward in time, we experience the haunting progression of climate degradation and the ramifications of a changing world, sometimes through the smallest of lenses. It’s a clever stylistic technique to keep the reader feeling both unprepared and alarmed as we progress through the future to alternate worlds not overly different to our own.

“The walk down to the town centre only takes ten minutes. It’s midwinter and tourism still hasn’t recovered from the pandemic years, so the place is empty. The pub is closed, but looking over the fence from the street they glimpse a view of the water through the vast beer garden.”

Else’s short story collection is an accessible read for reluctant readers, and perfect for those with only short spans of time to read. With vivid characters and engaging settings, readers will love this book. Readership skews 20+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Everything Feels Like the End of the World
Else Fitzgerald
August 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

A Lovely and Terrible Thing by Chris Womersley

Around you the world is swirling. You pass through a submerged town, its steeples and trees barely visible through the thick water . . .

In the distance the wreck of the gunship HMS Elizabeth lolls on a sandbank. Oil slicks the canals of the capital and even now the old men still tell tales of mermen in the shallows . . .

A pool empty of water save for a brackish puddle and bones and hanks of fur on the floor – the remains of mice or possums that have tumbled in, lured perhaps by the moisture. Or perhaps by something else . . .

Chris Womersley’s A Lovely and Terrible Thing is a memorable collection of twenty short stories, each as vivid and original as the next.

It’s hard to try and capture a concurrent theme in this work, or even a message that runs within each story. They’re all very different. Whilst most of the short stories are written in first person, the protagonists of each story are all unique creations. Some you sympathise with, or grow to love. Others you forget about the second the story is over, because they’re not the most memorable aspect of the story — and weren’t intended to be.

Each story has the potential to linger in your mind, leave you thinking. And the beauty of a short story collection is not every story will resonate with every reader. Everything is open to interpretation.

“I’m watching Frank and something happens to him as he tells his story. Right in front of my eyes he seems to age. He sags in his seat. Earlier you could see the guy he might have been twenty years ago, before whatever happened to him happened, but now he resembles an old bunyip with a comb-over.”
THE VERY EDGE OF THINGS

My favourites from the collection include The House of Special Purpose, for it’s ominous, tense plot and the sense of dread that builds throughout; Growing Pain, for it’s fantastical, other-worldly feel, and how it follows a character at the cusp of her teen years, a seemingly domestic setting, but she’s going through something a reader cannot relate to; The Mare’s Nest, for the secrets it doesn’t reveal; The Deep End, for the build up, the tension, and the jaw-dropping, incredibly juicy ending; and Theories of Relativity, for establishing familial dynamic in so few words, for circling back to earlier moments in such little time, and for that haunting ending that I had to re-read just to believe it was real.

“After several minutes I became aware — by what precise means I couldn’t say — that we were being observed. There was a twitch in the bushes, followed by an intimation of snuffling. Again the sound of small bells. My father breathed heavily. His hand was warm and dry.”
THE MARE’S NEST

Traversing a number of different emotions from heartache to heartfelt, Chris’ short stories explore death, family, friendship, and expectation, among many other subjects — where our lives ended up, versus where we thought they were, how we process grief and explain that to others, how close we come to death, or perhaps others brush it, and we find ourselves fascinated by it. You could spend a long time dissecting these stories and still find things to love about Chris’ writing. What a marvellous, wise collection of work — highly recommended.

“In the short walk across the lawn I had run through a variety of scenarios, all of which involved me emerging victorious from whatever altercation I was about to engage in, but now I was here, in the thick of it, my resolve ran from me like water.”
THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

Recommended for readers of short stories, or lovers of literary fiction. A quick read, and engrossing. Can easily be devoured in one sitting. A Lovely and Terrible Thing is filled with unpredictable characters and stories, and will leave you craving more.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

A Lovely and Terrible Thing
Chris Womersley
May 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers