I’m delighted to hear that Sarah Hall has been named the winner of this year’s Edge Hill Prize for the best short story collection to be published in 2011. Her collection The Beautiful Indifference also carried off the Readers’ Prize, awarded to the collection judged to be the best by Edge Hill students.
I read The Beautiful Indifference at the back end of last year and loved it completely. I tend to prefer collections that consist of fewer, longer stories rather than a random host of unconnected shorter ones, and Hall’s collection, with its seven fine stories, three of them at almost novella length, certainly delivered on that score. I felt particularly drawn to the sense of unease that runs through all these pieces – ‘She Murdered Mortal He’, which was selected for Granta’s ‘Horror Issue’ in October last year, was undoubtedly my favourite horror story of 2011, and the title story, ‘The Beautiful Indifference’, left me mute with admiration.
Although the stories are different from one another in terms of their subject matter and narrative voice, I never strayed far from the sense that they were nonetheless linked, through their tone, which is one of dread, of trouble in waiting, and then of course through their language, which is resplendent, richly coloured, accomplished in that way that feels effortless and yet is the mark of highest craftsmanship.
SF readers will already know Sarah Hall for The Carhullan Army, which was shortlisted for the Clarke in 2008. These stories are more proof that Hall does have a slipstream temperament. I sincerely hope she will want to explore this territory further in future works. In the meantime, I do recommend this wonderful collection one-hundred percent.
Congratulations to Sarah Hall. Brilliant result.
Very pleased also to see that novellas four and five in the aforementioned TTA novellas project have now been announced. I’m particulary glad to see that Country Dark, by James Cooper, will be part of the line-up. James is a fantastic writer, and if you’ve not yet read his collection The Beautiful Red then you’re in for a treat. This is weird fiction of the highest quality, compelling and dark and weird and wonderfully crafted. For me, it has that quality of genuine and genuinely frightening strangeness I look forward to in my favourite Robert Aickman stories.
A new story by James Cooper is always something to savour – and to learn from.
In other news, I’m happy to report that I finished the first draft of the novel on Thursday. If I haven’t said anything before it’s because I’m still feeling slightly bemused.
More on this in due course!