We knew we had chosen well when we tracked down Frances Gapper and asked her to submit her stories for publication. Now, Rachel Fenton has described Frances Gapper as ‘one of the most exciting imaginations producing fictions today.’ Here is what Rachel has to say about the title story of Frances’ new collection, ‘In the Wild Wood’:
The story details the metamorphosis of a mother into a child due to the symptoms of dementia, but really what’s being described is the fear of a child forced to become a parent to their parent, the grief of losing their own life to the shepherding of the person whose care consumes them. Old age, filtered through a child’s lexicon, is made new, a contrast symbolised beautifully by the cover illustration for In the Wild Wood, an original artwork by Jane Eccles that evokes Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant” for me.
Read Rachel Fenton’s review of In the Wild Wood on snow like thought.
To celebrate the publication of In the Wild Wood, Frances Gapper visits Jessica Patient at her imaginary bookshop, on Writer’s Little Helper.
What would make your bookshop different from all of the other ones?
My bookshop would be very different indeed from all the other ones. The emphasis would be on relaxation. Women over 60 would be invited to stay over free of charge for as long as they liked in private book-lined bedrooms with large bathrooms and writing tables.
Order Frances Gapper’s story collection for £12 plus p&p at the link: In the Wild Wood.
Postage and packing is free if you order two or more books
While we’re on the subject of stories and fiction writers, Nigel Jarrett is interviewed by Rupert Dastur on The Short Story. Rupert asks if Nigel has a favourite story in Who Killed Emil Kreisler:
I don’t have one! But in the opening story, Old Roffe, I like to think that I managed to combine big themes – human innocence, human frailty, and our relationship with the animal kingdom – in an almost minimal style […] Affairs of the heart confuse Evelina the zoo keeper but she alone is privy to the amazing behaviour of Roffe, the aged but delinquent gorilla. The story is set at a failing zoo in Sweden for no reason other than that creating a variety of geographical settings is my way of dealing with universals: it could happen here, it could happen there, it could happen everywhere.
Who Killed Emil Kreisler is reviewed by Katie Witcombe on The Contemporary Small Press:
Jarrett’s most successful stories, and the ones that burrow deepest under the skin, are those concerned with the ghostly traces we leave behind after we’re gone, like fingerprints on a windowpane […] One of his narrators asserts that ‘So much dies of us when we die’, but many of the characters in these stories leave indelible traces which reach out to warp and stain the lives of others, like watermarks on a page.
Order Nigel Jarrett’s story collection for £12 plus p&p at the link: Who Killed Emil Kreisler
Postage and packing is free if you order two or more books
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