“William Carlos Williams says that the short story, which acts like the flare of a match struck in the dark, is the only real form for describing the briefness, the brokenness and the simultaneous wholeness of people’s lives,” wrote Ali Smith. In this slim collection of seven loosely interlinked stories set over a winter fortnight, Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, is adept at exploring the possibilities of the form. Against the atmospheric chill and dark, families try to fill their lives with emotional warmth and ward off the creeping coldness threatening the most intimate relationships.
The creative process is discussed in the foreword, in which Joyce reveals how the characters first came into being – several having being cut from drafts of previous novels. These offcuts are here brought centre stage and given greater life.
Imagery exploring the tension between breakage and wholeness abounds, such as in the powerful story The Marriage Manual, in which Alice and Alan build their son a bicycle while pondering the disintegrating bond between them. Alice first notices a hairline crack not only on the wall but in their fracturing relationship.
“If something was broken it would need fixing,” thinks Alan – but in these poignant stories, characters must discover the painful truth of relationships beyond repair. It’s when they find the courage to recognise fragmentation that they paradoxically gain a greater sense of wholeness, and the strength to move on.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in,” is the Greek proverb that forms the collection’s epigraph. The strongest story is the final one, Trees, in which a son, Oliver, who is dealing with an emotional “ragged wound”, and his elderly father plant trees on New Year’s Eve, Joyce sensuously sifting through bare branches, roots and earth, regret and hope. As a life shudders to a halt, the collection compellingly captures what Joyce excels in evoking throughout her writing – the intimations of new beginnings even in the most painful ending.
• A Snow Garden and Other Stories by Rachel Joyce is published by Black Swan (£7.99). To order a copy for £6.55 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
