Andrea
Heiberg’s short story collection, ‘Next Stop: Sejer Island’, is an adroit
introduction to this extremely talented writer.
It appears a rather slight collection, just 84 pages in the Salt
publication that I read. There are eight
stories here, of varying lengths, but all eight have a cohesive bond in that
they present snapshots of life on the isolated Sejer Island, where Heiberg calls
home.
 |
| Andrea Heiberg's 'Next Stop: Sejer Island' |
In
Denmark, Heiberg is known for her work in the theatre (she has had work
performed on television there), but there are huge ellipses in her writing life
– theatre in the 80s, and then little or nothing until the early 2000s. During this time she clearly honed her talent
for writing in English, and ‘Next Stop: Sejer Island’ is untranslated. She displays a deft ear for English, and at
many times throughout this collection, Heiberg’s prose sings beautifully.
A
few stories in this collection, despite their brevity, reach novelistic
depth. ‘Numbers Never Lie’, the seventh
story, details the town council meeting where the locals discuss the future of
their island and the report that states the island will soon run out of natural
water. It is a story that take in high
comedy and island-wide tragedy in the same breath; one wished to spend longer
in its company. The story ‘Solemente
Para Tus Ojos’ impressed me most: the narrator accidently receives a letter
intended for a distant neighbour, so she returns it to the post office, who
suggest she deliver it herself. The
intended recipient, Maribell, is a wonderful creation, a mess of contradictions
who thinks nothing of angering her neighbours if she thinks it is for the best. Maribell’s letter, however, brings news that
will irrevocably alter both her and the narrator forever. It is wonderfully handled, expansive in
brevity, and genuinely moving.
The
short story is a difficult form to write in, and it bests many brilliant
writers. It is easy for short stories to
become schematic – inciting incident, observation, change (sometimes with a
twist or a kick) – and a couple of stories here still feel incomplete, ‘A
Kingdom for a Kalashnikov’ contains many beautifully arresting moments, but its
conclusion feels overworked, too emphatic; it strives to be more than it is, or
than it contains. On the flipside, ‘Interpreting
Golf Rule Number 25 Part B on Sejer Island’ is so brief it is no more than a
joke Heiberg’s been unable to find room for so has included it here without
much thought. However, when Heiberg does
get it right – in ‘Solemente Para Tus Ojos’, ‘Numbers Never Lie’ and ‘Where
There is Fish, There is Hope’ – when she manages to create an entire world in
just a few short paragraphs, her work truly sings beautifully.
‘Next
Stop: Sejer Island’ then is like most short story collections, a work that
dazzles, confounds and disappoints depending upon the story – I am not sure I
have read many collections where every story is an unalloyed masterpiece, I can
perhaps count them on one hand – so this should not be read as a negative
judgement on Heiberg’s collection. She
has done better than most, and ‘Next Stop: Sejer Island’ is an exquisite collection
of miniature’s whose cohesive quality elevates the material into minor
brilliance. She is a talented writer,
worth your time.
If you want to buy 'Next Stop: Sejer Island' it is available from Salt Publishing, a small press who deserve your attention. Buy it directly from them, they're lovely people.
No comments:
Post a Comment