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Synopsis
Long-listed for the 2016 Edge Hill Short Story Prize
What if, in a parallel universe, you made a different choice of lover? What if you’ve spent your whole life with entirely the wrong idea about your own sister? What do you do if you’re trapped in a phone box by a woman who might be a victim, but could have accomplices nearby? What if we’re wrong that ghosts come from the past, they come from somewhere else? What if we’re only dreaming the life we think we’re living? And can your life be changed by a message written by starlings on the sky?
In Used to Be, a woman is driven at breakneck speed down a motorway, her life flashing before her, and comes to see that there’s never just one story of a life. An eighteenth-century gentleman’s certainty is challenged by a strange phenomenon, and a fatality on the line throws into disarray the lives of the passengers of an express train. Black holes and flooding can make us feel that the universe is running away with us and steal our certainty: can we ever say who we are really are? How reliable can memory ever be, and can looking for a ruined castle unlock the secrets of one person’s past? Is there ever one real story?
In the world of these short fictions, things are rarely what they’re first assumed to be. There’s always another story lurking somewhere…
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About the Author
Elizabeth Baines was born in South Wales and lives in Manchester. She has been a teacher and is an occasional actor as well as the prize-winning author of plays for radio and stage, and of two novels, The Birth Machine and Body Cuts. Her award-winning short stories have been published widely in magazines and anthologies. Her first story collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World, was published by Salt in 2007. A novel, Too Many Magpies, will come from Salt in November 2009.
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Used to Be
Seller: WeBuyBooks, Rossendale, LANCS, United Kingdom
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paperback. Condition: Very Good. Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # rev2384906721
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Used to Be
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR007781133
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