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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Henrietta Rose-Innes’ debut collection of short fiction spans stories written from the mid 1990s to the present day, and is a welcome addition to her work. Rose-Innes has also written two previous novels, with a third forthcoming next year.
There are several moving and memorable stories, distilled essences of a particular time in characters’ lives, highlighting a pivotal point upon which a realisation is made and a life turns, for better or worse. Many of the stories take place in Rose-Innes’s hometown Cape Town, or in locales near to the city, and the city becomes a subtle backgrounds to the themes explored. Rose-Innes’s work is highly visual and when I recall the first story in this powerful collection, ‘Homing’ I immediately think in terms of the pictures painted by this writer.
The final story in the collection is the tour de force and the Caine Prize-winning, ‘Poison’. In this excellent apocalyptic story, Lynn finds herself fleeing Cape Town after a mysterious disaster has resulted in the city becoming contaminated, with residents fleeing in panic as fast and as far as they can. Lynn lands up at a near-deserted petrol station, and finds herself stranded in this empty world which is “poison violet and puce”. Sometimes there really is nothing left to do, but to abandon yourself to the violent, apocalyptic worlds you find yourself stranded in. A mere telling of the events don’t do justice to a story that is haunting in its simplicity, and continues to resonate. A story of extraordinary power: a description that fits much of Rose-Innes’s short fiction in this excellent volume.
There are several moving and memorable stories, distilled essences of a particular time in characters’ lives, highlighting a pivotal point upon which a realisation is made and a life turns, for better or worse. Many of the stories take place in Rose-Innes’s hometown Cape Town, or in locales near to the city, and the city becomes a subtle backgrounds to the themes explored. Rose-Innes’s work is highly visual and when I recall the first story in this powerful collection, ‘Homing’ I immediately think in terms of the pictures painted by this writer.
The final story in the collection is the tour de force and the Caine Prize-winning, ‘Poison’. In this excellent apocalyptic story, Lynn finds herself fleeing Cape Town after a mysterious disaster has resulted in the city becoming contaminated, with residents fleeing in panic as fast and as far as they can. Lynn lands up at a near-deserted petrol station, and finds herself stranded in this empty world which is “poison violet and puce”. Sometimes there really is nothing left to do, but to abandon yourself to the violent, apocalyptic worlds you find yourself stranded in. A mere telling of the events don’t do justice to a story that is haunting in its simplicity, and continues to resonate. A story of extraordinary power: a description that fits much of Rose-Innes’s short fiction in this excellent volume.
A real page turner, which is slightly odd given the short stories are not connected by anything other than being written by the same person.