Strange fruits bloom in Chloe Wilsonâs sardonic short stories
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By Jack Cameron Stanton
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Chloe Wilsonâs short story
Hold Your Fire is the work of a suave humourist. In this darkly droll story, a weapons engineer must look after her husband, who has become obsessed with fecal transplants, and her son, who is being bullied at school.
Scanning over a single episode from the story reveals some masterful duplicitous satire: the protagonist reads an article in
Munitions Journal about recent market constraints, meaning âthat one war or another had come to an endâ; her husband, Connor, discusses his fecal transplant in encyclopedic detail âduring one of his long, stuttering bouts on our ensuite toiletâ; and the sonâs newfangled school refers to a classroom as an âexperience podâ and sick bay the âwellness centreâ.
(Titan Books US 9781789095760, $16, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, Feb 23, 2021)
Videogame tie-in, the first volume of the official novelization. Mysterious explosions have rocked the planet, setting off a series of supernatural phenomena known as the Death Stranding. Spectral creatures that devour the living have pushed humanity to the brink of extinction, causing countries to fall and survivors to scatter and live in pockets of isolation. Translated by Carley Radford.
From fictional debuts to untold histories, Martin Chilton rounds up the forthcoming titles to keep you reading throughout the year.
Julian Barnes wrote: Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory. Although he was joking about Gustave Flaubert s carnal desires, Barnes could easily have been describing the sweet sense of excitement felt by book lovers contemplating new pages on the horizon. The new year will bring novels from Kazuo Ishiguro, Sebastian Faulks, Lisa Taddeo, Stephen King and Jonathan Franzen; memoirs from Brian Cox and David Sedaris; and non-fiction releases from George Saunders, Dr Rachel Clarke and Matt Haig. There is even going to be a children s book about positive thinking from footballer and food-provision campaigner Marcus Rashford.