This passionate new book gathers together for the first time many of Vanessa Gebbie's award-winning stories. Described by Maggie Gee as 'a prodigiously gifted new writer', this is a natural storyteller; her narratives unfold with a deceptively light touch, exploring with compassion what it is to be human and flawed. "Words From a Glass Bubble" is about coming to terms with the cards we are dealt. The stories pivot around the recognition that those who seem powerless can prove to be the strongest catalysts for change, both in themselves and in others. Vanessa Gebbie never shies away from difficult subjects, creating an intensely emotional and at times distressing world, but it is never totally dark or despairing. Sparks of the unexpected and flashes of humour light the whole collection with an indefatigable optimism.This is a writer with a boundless imagination, who breathes life into the most unlikely characters and events. Batty Annie fishes for her son's soul in a disused railway tunnel. Tom's grandmother flies on a circus trapeze. Spike relates to cacti better than people. Eva Duffy befriends a statuette of the Virgin Mary. Pepito pretends he is a priest and suffers the consequences. Shelly has a colonic irrigation to rid herself of the past. Billy hears stones when he shakes his head. Dodie from The General Stores falls for a man who teaches her 'to think', and Mikey mourns his wife through graffiti. From Ireland to Czechoslovakia to Wales to Alaska to Ibiza, from contemporary New York to a clinic in the future, this collection will take you on a journey. And Harry - he just goes fishing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A rare talent. Waterstone's Booksellers Riveting! a blithe and energetic narrative drive. Mslexia A beautifully crafted collection. Pulp.net Exactly what a short story collection should be: vivid, varied, moving, lyrical, disturbing, entertaining, thought provoking, original. A wonderful read. The Short Review
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About the Author
Vanessa Gebbie is Welsh. She is author of 'Words from a Glass Bubble' (Salt, 2008), a collection of her award winning fiction from prizes including Bridport and the Daily Telegraph. She is contributing editor of Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story (Salt, 2009), and contributor to The Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (Rose Metal Press, 2009). She teaches widely; in 2010 she was Writer in Residence at Stockholm University.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Intimate read,
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This review is from: Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Modern Poets S.) (Paperback)
To read Words from a Glass Bubble by the Welsh author Vanessa Gebbie is like having a talk with your most intimate and yet secret friend, a companion that will take you deep into its soul while at the same time touching yours.
The stories in Gebbie's collection are like bubbles within bubbles, magical and multilayered. Simple, mundane lives of her characters ooze emotive richness, often against the background of Biblical contexts, which Gebbie truly brings down to earth and explores in their everyday implications for human lives. I read it at one sitting, so it was quite a page turner, but then the second, slower reading was a far more enriching experience. There is a lot of mass below the tip of this iceberg of a book. [...]
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bubbling Over With The Good Stuff,
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This review is from: Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Modern Fiction) (Hardcover)
"Words from a Glass Bubble" by Vanessa Gebbie is a collection of nineteen of her short stories, compiled in a handsome hardback from Salt Publishing. There's no overarching narrative, but although the stories are very different, some themes and images crop up more than once.
Gebbie's talent is to shine a light onto her characters, giving us brief insights into their lives, their hopes, their disappointments, and--most of all--their mistakes, before moving on, leaving us with the hope that the characters too will carry on, make better decisions, have better luck, once the spotlight is removed. Each story has its own voice, from "Words in a Glass Bubble" itself, where a family tries to come to terms with the loss of their son, to "Smoking Down There", where a child naively recounts her friend's story of how she almost inadvertently saved her baby brother from being disposed of at birth. The fragmentary, butterfly narrative convinces as that of a child. 'But then, if you smoked down there why didn't the hairs catch fire? That's what I wanted to know. But the bucket. Why wash out of a bucket when there were perfectly nice china things?' Gebbie doesn't shy away from the darker side of life. One story, "Irrigation", goes into great detail--too great detail for this reader--about an enema. In "Dodie's Gift", the central character is left lost and wondering, "...if someone takes something you were going to give them anyway, is that stealing?' Reading this story, it's hard to decide whether to give her a hug or a good shake. Either, you think, might damage her beyond repair. This story contains an image that recurs--'But there, at the bottom of the hollow, a gull has had a meal, and the sand holds white bone, red bone, skin....' The predator devours, leaves what it doesn't want, and moves on. What's been devoured, abandoned, somehow has to move on, too. Its life now may not be what it envisaged, but it still holds significance. None of the stories is too long, although it's easy to feel some are too short. The characters live on in our minds and we can't help wondering what will happen next. If they'll come out all right. This collection is definitely one to savour. Read a story, put it down, think about it, come back--the whole can't be devoured in an afternoon. [Reviewed by Debbie Moorhouse]
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