You Are Not a Stranger Here

Adam Haslett
(Vintage) $22.95 PB

This is a book for those of us who enjoy a good spot of morose self-reflection (now, think twice before declaring that's just not you). Try it out in a cafe. It's a collection of nine short fiction stories by a new writer named Adam Haslett. And it's eminently readable.

The tales start at a smart pace in the acrid voice of an ageing rogue whose knack and understanding for invention overrule his links to his family and to reality. In other stories, we meet an old lady with 'skin the colour of a whitish moon' and a house that smells like rotting flesh; and a poised, lonely man whose most meaningful pursuit becomes a daily letter to an absent father.

The shared themes of Mr Haslett's stories are loss, estrangement and mental illness. In each there hangs a note of desperation - sometimes manifesting brutally, more often identifiable in the vague despondency of someone accustomed to living without feeling. The rhythm in composition of the nine works varies between dynamic and fluctuating to those that just slip by like a modest rain shower. Each is written with eloquence and, thankfully, with restraint. While undoubtedly intended to pull at heartstrings, the stories are not overwrought or classically sentimental.

If short stories are just not your thing, as they are not mine, this book will never be wholly satisfying simply due to its vehicle. But before labeling it 'lightweight', it should be credited that Mr Haslett uses the medium to advantage. The fewer pieces filled in for us, the more reading becomes like glimpsing into a window. It is just this quality that allowed me to slide a couple of times while reading You Are Not a Stranger Here into a luxurious melancholy. The kind of melancholy which turns the normal melee of people walking by in the street, into a ballet of unfulfilled souls weaving through each other in dappled light, each with an untold loss, each unconscious to the hope that might exist in everything they pass. The cover of the book becomes remarkably poignant at this point. You might even catch yourself hankering for loss, something that will prolong the romantic bubble of acute empathy that suddenly hovers around you. Or you might just order a strong coffee, and turn the page. It's worth doing.

Review by Leah Muddle