In his touching Foreword to Girl, Balancing and Other Stories, Helen Dunmore’s son, Patrick Charnley, tells us that she had discussed with him the possibility of a collection of short stories to be published after her death. Charnley mined his mother’s papers and laptop, gathering together thirty-three pieces written in the two decades since Dunmore’s last collection was published. Demonstrating the empathy that characterised so much of his mother’s work, Charnley tells us that the family’s delight in what he found is one of our reasons for publishing the collection, to share this work with Mum’ s readers, many of whom, too, must feel that their enjoyment of Mum’s writing has been cut short.
The first of the collection’s three sections, The Nina Stories, is made up of three linked pieces beginning with the comfort of warm olive oil in a sore ear and ending with an assertion of a young woman’s independence in the face of danger.
The Present starts with the teasing humour of ‘Taken in the Shadows’ in which the narrator contemplates John Donne’s portrait, the object of many a fifteen-year-old’s desire, imagining his ankle itching as he sits for it before recounting the miseries of a life spent in poverty. Three favourites from this section for me include ‘All Those Personal Survival Medals’ which turns a burning childhood humiliation into a life-saving triumph, ‘A Night Out’ in which two women, prematurely widowed, find unexpected friendship and the poignant ‘Portrait of Auntie Binbag, with Ribbons’ in which a young girl is faced with the result of her family’s dismissive perception of her aunt.
The Past takes us from the wartime passion of ‘Rose, 44’ which sees a young woman’s hopes for her black American lover violently quashed to ‘With Shackleton’ in which a woman inwardly rails against her mother-in-law’s pride as she misses her husband, off on an expedition soon after her miscarriage to ‘Grace Poole Her Testimony’ in which Dunmore has fun with Jane Eyre, throwing a very different light on Rochester and his daughter’s governess.
Many of the themes running through these stories will be familiar to Dunmore fans. Family, friendship, memory, love and passion, and, of course, women and their place in the world are all adroitly explored. Several are set in Bristol where Dunmore had lived and worked for many years: ‘A View from the Observatory’ which recalls an illicit moonlit visit to the camera obscura on the Downs is a particular delight with its air of menace, deftly handled in Dunmore’s characteristic style. As ever with Dunmore, so much is said in a few precisely chosen words: in ‘Duty Free’ a woman reflects on the youth of the soldiers passing through on their way to Afghanistan but with characteristic restraint Dunmore makes no mention of what may happen to them. You won’t be surprised to hear that there are a multitude of lines I could have quoted but here are a few which seem to me to capture Dunmore’s wonderful facility with language and acute observation:
There were lots of drawings of a bare man who looked as if he didn’t know he hadn’t got any clothes on thinks an eleven-year-old at an exhibition
Our students like modules which demand opinions rather than extensive reading an academic wryly observes
I would stare down to see if my badness was flickering away across the dust like a snake remembers a woman of her childhood beating
They were offering smiles now, and Christmas greetings, as if they were all survivors of a wreck and had been hauled up on to the same raft expresses the relief of family Christmases almost over
I’m driving in the dark. There’s not another car in sight. I haven’t seen one for miles. Only my own headlights, brushing the loneliness
Even if a woman has always coloured her hair, she won’t be able to fool anyone after her death
There’s not one dud in this collection. I’m sure Dunmore’s many fans will be as grateful to her family as I am for sharing this final, unexpected treat.
I love the quote about the naked men not realising they were naked. That’s definitely how they look in statues and paintings. Oddly enough, the opposite seems to apply to women in the same situation.
It’s on the button, isn’t it? Hard to know whether that’s down to the sculptor or the genders!
I have my suspicions 🙂
Ah, yes, I could never get enough of Helen Dunmore, I will certainly look for this one.
It’s something of a bittersweet treat given the circumstnaces but it’s everything that fans like you and I would hope for, Marina.
This is one I must read. There was something about Dunmore’s writing… We lost a great literary talent in the prime of her writing life. Lovely post, Susan.
Thank you, Paula. We did, indeed. Such elegant, understated writing coupled with consummate storytelling but often underrated alongside peers of her generation.
Oddly enough, I’ve never read any Dunmore, but your fondness for her works leads to think that I ought to at some point. A very sensitive review as ever, Susan.
Thanks, Jacqui. I think you’d enjoy her work. Such a fine writer, and an excellent storyteller too.
I really haven’t read enough Dunmore I do have two or three tbr. This collection sounds lovely. I have read the Grace Poole story in the Tracey Chevalier anthology; Reader I married him. That story was one of the better stories in that collection, which I wasn’t crazy about.
I thought she probably had a lot of fun writing that story. I hope you enjoy the books you have in the tbr, Ali.
Lovely review Susan, the quotes you pulled are just beautiful. I have never read Dunmore and I absolutely know I have to. I have 3 in the TBR mountain and I’m determined to get to her this year!
Thank you. Her writing is sublime, both elegant and precise. I’ll have to find a hat to eat if you don’t like it!
This was put together in love. What a wonderful way to honour her memory
She was one of the finest, yet underrated writers of ehr gernation, for me. I’m so glad that her family has shared this last book with us.
What a lovely review. Those quotes are wonderful!