This week I read Bad Dreams, Tessa Hadley’s short story collection. I have been reading an awful lot of short stories lately, partly because I went on a literary journal buying spree a while ago and they have been slowly arriving in the post. But I bought Bad Dreams because Tessa Hadley judged The Bridport Prize in 2016 so I figured since she read my story I should take a look at hers too.
I thought Bad Dreams was absolutely brilliant. That’s why I’m writing about it here. (I don’t blog about books I don’t like, I tend to just put them away and move on.) The stories are made up of the most mundane ingredients that slowly come together to make something greater. All of her stories have a kind of airy triviality about the events and the characters, how small their lives are, how inconsequential it all seems, but then by the end of the story those trivial details have transcended and become bigger and more significant. I absolutely love how she does this. This is what realism can do so well. Taking all this stuff that is boringly familiar on the surface and contextualising it so that it seems almost magical.
A couple of the stories really stood out for me. Her Share of Sorrow is about a young girl who discovers reading, and then writing, and sets herself to writing a novel. Her family discover the novel and make fun of it a little, and so, crushed by this, she retreats and finishes it in secret. See how small that story sounds? But it evokes the private thrill of writing so perfectly that it almost has a transcendent quality.
But by far the best, for me anyway, was Silk Brocade. As soon as I finished reading it I instantly read the final few pages again. It is about two dressmakers who are hired to make a wedding dress for an old acquaintance. It about loss and change and drift and reunion in a most unexpected way. As much as I want to describe the clever, heart-breaking ending, what I think you should really do is try and read it for yourself. If you like that kind of thing. I think it is one of the best short stories I have ever read.
I enjoyed this collection of shorts so much I am certain to try one of her novels later. If I can ever make it through the mountain of short stories that I have recently acquired – made more difficult by the fact the Jeffrey Eugenides new short story collection Fresh Complaint came out recently, as well as the 50th issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, which is particularly lavish, even by their high standards. Here, look at it. Who can resist this?
toby wallis 