Mandy's Reviews > Collected Stories

I’m not a great reader of short stories, often finding them frustrating and unsatisfactory, but this collection completely won me over. The 28 stories collected here from Australian-American writer Shirley Hazzard are without exception captivating, showing insight and a shrewd observation of relationships, insecurities and the pain and disappointments of love and life. I read one a day, a real treat to start my mornings. The collection is divided into 3 parts. The first comprises stories from her 1936 collection Cliffs of Fall, sometimes quite brutal stories about love and connection – or lack of it. The 2nd section is from her 1967 collection People in Glass Houses and in these her humour and wit come to the fore. The tales here are sometimes considered a novel but felt more like a series of linked vignettes about life at an international organisation based on the UN, where Hazzard herself worked for a time and she casts a jaundiced eye over bureaucracy in all its absurdities. The last section comprises previously unpublished stories that are tender and often melancholy and sad. Precisely observed, nuanced and compassionate, this timeless collection as a whole made me laugh and cry in equal measure, and her calm measured style, where every word counts, is short story writing at its best.