The City Life Book of Manchester Short Stories - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140284133 ISBN 13: 9780140284133

Publisher: Penguin, 1999

Synopsis

The world's first entirely industrial city may be better known for its football team and its well-spring of musical talent but a so far unrecognised feature of Manchester's cultural landscape is its hotbed of authors writing in genres as diverse ascrime and comedy, working class drama and magic realism. This anthology is the first major gathering of fiction from the city, featuring original stories from Andrea Ashworth, Tim Willocks, Jeff Noon, Nicholas Blincoe, Henry Normal, Michael Bracewell, Livi Michael, Val McDermid, PP Hartnett, Jackie Kay, Mark E. Smith and DJ Dave Haslam among others ... Forget Old Trafford and Burnage and make way for a new mythical roadmap.

About this title

Review:

"Of course in Manchester it rains all the time and the people here have a split personality to accommodate it," writes Jackie Kay. "The bleak, rainy personality and the surprised, sunny one ..."

Manchester's infamous grey climate sets a melancholy atmosphere throughout these 25 stories, a dark side previously documented by Joy Division and The Smiths. In fact, few British city's have had so many words written about them. Yet until recently, little fiction had been set in the city. Manchester Stories attempts to redress the balance.

Despite the writers' diverse backgrounds, common themes emerge, one being childhood memories. Andrea Ashworth's "Morietti's Super-Swirl" creates wonderfully nostalgic imagery of ice-cream vans, nit nurses and Jehovah's Witnesses. Michael Bracewell's childhood portrait of "Blackley, Crumpsall, Harpurhey" is curiously "re-mixed" by Jeff Noon. Meanwhile, P-P Hartnett, Karline Smith and Cath Staincliffe document contemporary childhood--a boy discovering his sexuality in the gay village; a black girl obsessed by Manchester United; a vicious girl-gang mugging students.

Another re-occurring theme is loners--from a lonely office girl to an ex-serviceman's desolate routine. Tim Willocks explores the city with Billy Micklehurst, a homeless wanderer, describing it as "a city of outcasts stacked tall with broken majesty." The downbeat feel is compounded by the depressing account of elderly siblings on a run-down estate by Shelagh Delaney, author of "Taste Of Honey".

Yet Mancunians have a knack of combing misery with humour-- read Nicholas Blincoe and David Bowker's contributions. Perhaps a Manchester literary style is emerging--one that fuses rainy city melancholia; twisted humour; post-Pulp- Fiction violence and the linguistic influence of generations of immigrants. Editor Ra Page describes it, "buried Irish lilt, mixed with Lancashire obstinacy, with more than a pinch of Afro-Caribbean swagger, Jewish argot and Asian colour ..." --Sarah Champion

Synopsis:

Well-known for its football team and its well-spring of musical talent, Manchester is little recognised for its its hotbed of authors. This anthology is a major gathering of fiction from the city, featuring original stories from such writers as Tim Willocks, Jackie Kay and DJ Dave Haslam.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0140284133
• ISBN 13: 9780140284133
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Page Ra