Lucy Caldwell’s first short-story collection is largely rooted in her native Belfast and points up aspects of the city – not the Troubles, which are barely alluded to, but a rawness and an intolerance of difference, whether in skin colour or sexuality. Perhaps that’s the way it was in the recent past, when many of these stories are set. They are, on the whole, stories of damage, of unhappiness and even death. Life itself feels provisional, not to be relied on. You might do something ill-considered and suddenly it could be over, especially if you’re a child with a child’s exaggerated fears and longings: a teacher will seem impossibly attractive, a friend will move away and life will lie in tatters, a burgeoning relationship will outshine the sun. Taken together, the stories are a survey of the threats faced by women from childhood through to childbirth. Caldwell often uses the second person in her stories, addressing an unnamed “you”. It’s a stylistic choice that can take some getting used to. Where one might have expected a first-person narrator, it sometimes feels as though she’s telling herself a story, comforting herself in the face of a multitude of hurts.
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