Parts of this collection of two novellas, set in the Northwest of England, are excellent. The parts written by Jenn Ashworth. Her novella "After the Funeral, the Crawl," is set in the city of Preston. Characterization is subtle, and beautifully done. The plot is open enough to be intriguing, but gives a real sense that something is happening to these two 30-somethings, whose visit to their home town for the funeral of a friend, marks a moment when their relationship can never be the same again. Setting is vivid, and integral to the plot.
Full disclosure, I live 20 minutes from Preston. Reading a story set in a place you know (pretty) well can be ... a mixed blessing. Too detailed and it's distracting, and feels like the author is showing off. Wrong, and it's distracting, because you lose the plot, thinking "There isn't a pedestrian crossing outside the train station ... (Actually, there is. That was just a hypothetical ...) But Ashworth uses local detail to chart the journey of of this no-longer-quite-so-young couple, as the death of their old hometown friend Simon -- was it an accident? Suicide? Cancer? Is there any answer to that question that isn't depressing? -- exposes all sorts of cracks in their relationship, and perhaps in their souls.
I want to read more by Ms Ashworth.
I'm afraid I didn't get beyond ten pages of the second story, "JUDAS!"by Benjamin Webster. I almost didn't get past the first page, but I forced myself. This is Webster's first published story, and it has an intriguing premise -- a time-slip story, in which the narrative voice time travels though the recent history of Manchester (one of the Northwest's two major cities, and the one I don't know well). This is Webster's first published work, and, for me, it's just overwritten. "The old cotton mills and factories held his heart in a brick-brown cage ..." It feels like "creative writing," for its own sake.
Full disclosure, I live 20 minutes from Preston. Reading a story set in a place you know (pretty) well can be ... a mixed blessing. Too detailed and it's distracting, and feels like the author is showing off. Wrong, and it's distracting, because you lose the plot, thinking "There isn't a pedestrian crossing outside the train station ... (Actually, there is. That was just a hypothetical ...) But Ashworth uses local detail to chart the journey of of this no-longer-quite-so-young couple, as the death of their old hometown friend Simon -- was it an accident? Suicide? Cancer? Is there any answer to that question that isn't depressing? -- exposes all sorts of cracks in their relationship, and perhaps in their souls.
I want to read more by Ms Ashworth.
I'm afraid I didn't get beyond ten pages of the second story, "JUDAS!"by Benjamin Webster. I almost didn't get past the first page, but I forced myself. This is Webster's first published story, and it has an intriguing premise -- a time-slip story, in which the narrative voice time travels though the recent history of Manchester (one of the Northwest's two major cities, and the one I don't know well). This is Webster's first published work, and, for me, it's just overwritten. "The old cotton mills and factories held his heart in a brick-brown cage ..." It feels like "creative writing," for its own sake.
