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Mick Jackson: Ten Sorry Tales (2005)
This is a collection of ten short stories, which, according to the author’s web site is a strange brew, “full of bone-digging, tunnel-making, child-snatching, alien-landing and the sneaking-around-of-museums, late at night.” These stories are far from sorry, rather the opposite. I find them truly fresh and delightful. There’s something macabre and Roald Dahlesque about some of them, others just make you happy. “A row-boat in the cellar” for instance, belongs to the latter category. After having read too much contemporary ‘realistic’ fiction that always ends tragically, I tend to expect the worst, so when I started reading the row-boat story, I frankly didn’t believe the protagonist would survive. Fortunately my fears were unfounded. Jackson’s stories are actually quite unpredictable, so there is no risk of falling asleep whilst reading them. Jackson is a new author to me, but after tasting his short stories, I look forward to reading his two previous novels, The Underground man (1998) and Five boys (2001).
Each story has an illustration by David Roberts, who also has illustrated several books by Philip Ardagh.
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| A row-boat in the cellar |
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