Jim Crace: The Devil's Larder

By MARK BROATCH*

As this is a collection of brief short stories - some just a few paragraphs - connected only by the theme of food and not by characters or plot, The Devil's Larder should not come close to satisfying.

I suspect it's only because Birmingham-based novelist Jim Crace, who was a guest at Wellington's Writers and Readers Week this year, enjoys an auspicious shake of the talent dice that these 64 tasty morsels even come close to making a fresh and piquant dish.

Such a tapas plate of ideas and vignettes can be partaken of at leisure, but it is delivered with enough pace and momentum, marvellous invention and sparse but evocative description, that it can be consumed from go to whoa without a touch of indigestion.

Foodie metaphors aside, the tales are rich with allusions to sex and sin, the intimate links between eating, ritual and relationships: the piece of dough left on the window sill for the angels; the masterful letter to a longtime lunch friend, at once cajoling and threatening him out of his parsimonious ways; the eating of forbidden fruit, be it poached game or far more nefarious fodder.

The backstory of the characters in these minute tales is revealed in just a few words. Little is wasted on precise geographic information; we are not always sure if they're set in Britain, America or elsewhere.

We are not always sure either, at least immediately, if the narrator or protagonist is male or female. Consistency of style and tone, and an undercurrent of humour that's mischievous and clever, ensures this anywhere, everyperson quality doesn't come across as heavy-handed.

The more spooky or wry tales may lure you into Crace's fine back catalogue of novels, such as Being Dead (love and decay), Quarantine (Jesus in the desert) and Arcadia (progress and pride), of which even the saddest and most bleak are, as here, imbued with a loving tenderness.

The cute and touching ones should meanwhile remind you of what fun he must have had working on Larder.

Only a food lover could write this collection, which is about to come out in paperback, and food lovers should dive in with gusto.

Penguin

$24.95

* Mark Broatch is an Auckland-based journalist and author.