Rajorshi Chakraborti

False River by Paula Morris (Penguin Random House, 2017), 288 pp., $35

Among the many delights, for me, of reading Paula Morris’s wonderful, unclassifiable prose collection, False River, was the recurrent sensation of being reminded of other incredible writers, of feeling Roberto Bolaño suddenly close by, or Patricia Highsmith, or Joyce, or the names behind the great fairy tales, or Mansfield (although that story explicitly sets out to play with ‘The Garden Party’, and does so with delicious humour), and once, even Raymond Chandler in this memorable simile: ‘He kissed me like his mother had bribed him with five dollars when he really needed fifty.’ (81) [Read more…]

Breton Dukes

Low Life by Michael Botur (Createspace, 2017), 244 pp., $27.99; Fresh Ink by multiple authors (Cloud Ink Press, 2017), 224 pp., $28

It’s a tough time to be writing short stories in New Zealand. Anecdotally, we hear collections aren’t selling well. Competitions have disappeared or had prize money slashed (the Katherine Mansfield and the Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards). Magazines that once accepted single stories (the Listener) stopped taking them years ago. And many publishers state, if in not so many words, WARNING, SHORT STORIES NOT WELCOME. Other forms, such as creative non-fiction and poetry (particularly with the arrival of Hera Lindsay Bird and Ashleigh Young), have vaulted short stories in terms of profile and sales.  [Read more…]