A review by zibby
Man V. Nature by Diane Cook

4.0

This is an outstanding debut collection of short stories - filled to bursting with fresh ideas, sartorial swipes and dark humour. Many stories deal with human relationships boiled down to essentials or given a surrealist twist to bring out new perspectives (take for example the opening story, Moving On - where poor widows are sent to a detention centre to await husband reassignment - really a perceptive exploration of grief of a loved one). For me though, the strongest stories where those that tackled ideas around motherhood and children. The stand-out story for me was Somebody's Baby, surrounding a mysterious man who took people's first, second or even third born children. It addressed issues of motherhood, especially new mothers and feelings of indecency, that I've not really seen much of in fiction. Other stories such as The Not-Needed Forest are full more violent urges and the 'darker' side of humanity. The prose is direct and unfussy, cutting through the more strange/surreal elements and ground the stories in reality.