I already knew that Josephine Rowe writes sentences like a dream; for evidence I needn't go further than the first paragraph of the first story in this collection, "Glisk", which also happens to be the story of hers which prompted me to pick up Here Until August in the first place (because it's extremely good):
We are wading out, the five of us. I remember this. The sun an hour or two from melting into the ocean, the slick trail of its gold showing the way we will take.
What I now know is that her craft also extends to putting stories together, with all ten of those collected here satisfying not just on the level of language, but also in how narrative and action fold into theme, concern and mood - structurally as well as in terms of story-ness.
Most - maybe all - of the stories are structured around absences and losses, and frequently there's a sense of characters in that state of both drifting and stasis; given that Rowe is a writer who was born in the early 80s and grew up in Australia (although her settings range broader), it's not surprising that there are little grace notes of cultural reference points sprinkled throughout, a passing reference to Kieslowski here, another to Blacklisted and The Greatest there.
Strikingly, though, the situations and characterisations are also strong - especially the driftless couple of "Real Life", becalmed in Montreal amidst multiple deaths, the newlyweds arguing about which of them will bear their hypothetical child in "Anything Remarkable" (also, the sneakily ambiguous, ambivalent way that one begins: "Certain days: it is easy to imagine this small, once-prosperous river town (barely distinct from many other small, once-prosperous river towns) as if you are only passing through it, shunpiking the thruways in favour of the scenic rural two-lanes on a road trip in your better, your best life."), and the taxi driver and her passenger in "The Once-Drowned Man".
For me, Rowe's commitment to the shapes and elements of her stories - and her great ability to interleave them - is one of the things that makes them stand out. There were perhaps two or three points, across the ten stories, where I felt a particular gesture or moment was too 'story-ish', but even they land with a certain panache, and they're exceptions amidst what's a fairly marvellous set, which I got a lot out of and some of which I suspect I'll return to.
We are wading out, the five of us. I remember this. The sun an hour or two from melting into the ocean, the slick trail of its gold showing the way we will take.
What I now know is that her craft also extends to putting stories together, with all ten of those collected here satisfying not just on the level of language, but also in how narrative and action fold into theme, concern and mood - structurally as well as in terms of story-ness.
Most - maybe all - of the stories are structured around absences and losses, and frequently there's a sense of characters in that state of both drifting and stasis; given that Rowe is a writer who was born in the early 80s and grew up in Australia (although her settings range broader), it's not surprising that there are little grace notes of cultural reference points sprinkled throughout, a passing reference to Kieslowski here, another to Blacklisted and The Greatest there.
Strikingly, though, the situations and characterisations are also strong - especially the driftless couple of "Real Life", becalmed in Montreal amidst multiple deaths, the newlyweds arguing about which of them will bear their hypothetical child in "Anything Remarkable" (also, the sneakily ambiguous, ambivalent way that one begins: "Certain days: it is easy to imagine this small, once-prosperous river town (barely distinct from many other small, once-prosperous river towns) as if you are only passing through it, shunpiking the thruways in favour of the scenic rural two-lanes on a road trip in your better, your best life."), and the taxi driver and her passenger in "The Once-Drowned Man".
For me, Rowe's commitment to the shapes and elements of her stories - and her great ability to interleave them - is one of the things that makes them stand out. There were perhaps two or three points, across the ten stories, where I felt a particular gesture or moment was too 'story-ish', but even they land with a certain panache, and they're exceptions amidst what's a fairly marvellous set, which I got a lot out of and some of which I suspect I'll return to.
