Short takes: Paperbacks

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON

Jules Hardy: Altered Land

An unusual, haunting story of the relationship between a mother and son, Joan and John. They are still living in the context of a catastrophe that happened when John was 13 - a terrorist bomb blast that changed the course of their lives. Chapters alternate between the two: John, now a builder, is married to Sonja who suffers from synaesthesia, a confusion of the senses, but he understands that the marriage is disintegrating. Joan, who before the accident traded on her beauty to find love, writes incessantly in her journal, a whisky bottle always at her side, trying to make sense of her life. Sounds doleful, but it's not. In fact, it's captivating, poignant, and a most skilful rendering of a relationship, and of love, over time.

Pocket Books, $22.95

* * *

Claire Messud: The Hunters

This contains two very different novellas: A Simple Tale, about a former peasant from the Ukraine, Maria Poniatowski, who became a forced labourer for the Nazis before emigrating to Canada; and The Hunters, in which an American academic, recently disappointed in love, spends a summer in London and develops a relationship with a rather mysterious neighbour. Both characters hold their pasts tight within them, using silence as a strategy for survival, hoping ritual will save them, yet needing to find a way to enter the future. The stories intrigue, and Messud wields language with enormous confidence, unafraid of subtlety and, somehow, in the silent spaces between her words we realise that we know and understand these people, perhaps better than they know themselves.

Picador, $27.95

* * *

Jackie Kay: Why Don't You Stop Talking

An intriguing collection of short stories about ordinary people whose interior lives are touched by the bizarre. In Shark! Shark! a man's life is changed after he sees a documentary about sharks. In the title story a lonely woman chatters uncontrollably to strangers. In The Woman With Knife and Fork Disorder Irene's own encroaching madness following her husband's desertion and her daughter's hostility is echoed in her cutlery drawer. In Timing a woman schedules her own activities to coincide with the routines of others, and so on. These characters all seek, desperately, to be loved, and for the comfort and company that love brings. Instead other, dreadful things happen to them. Exhilarating to read, though, because of the sheer punch of Kay's imagination and pithy skill.

Picador, $27.95

* * *

Aimee Liu: Flash House

A curious hybrid, this spy thriller cum historical drama cum romance is set in the Cold War in Central Asia, at the nexus of India, China, Tibet and the Soviet Union. Liu has done astonishing research to bring the period to life, and amid all the politics sets her own story of left-wing American journalist Aidan Shaw, who goes missing in Kashmir in 1949, and his wife Carol's attempts to discover the truth behind his disappearance. There is a will-she-won't-she aspect to Carol's friendship with Aidan's best friend, Australian intelligence officer Lawrence Malcolm, but by book's ends most of our romantic illusions have been shattered. This is no schmaltzy tale, but something far grittier. Alternate chapters are narrated by Kamla, an Indian orphan girl who Carol helped escape from a "flash house" or brothel, adding another dimension - of cultural attraction and difference - to this already rich story.

Review, $34.99

* * *

Meg Henderson: The Last Wanderer

This story of three generations of women begins in the wild, isolated Shetland Islands of the early 20th century, where the fishing fleet was dependent upon and at the mercy of the sea. It meanders from there to the stinking fish-processing sheds of Lowestoft, then back to the small fishing community of Acarsaid on the far west coast of Scotland. It's a fascinating portrait of a way of life that ended with World War II, although the story continues on up to the present day, moving through the rapidly changing times that are really the theme of the story. Raw, vivid storytelling with dark humour and tough, briny characters.

Flamingo, $31.95