Furnace

by Wayne Price

In evading an ingratiating unofficial guide, a hapless backpacker seals his fate. A woman undertakes a pilgrimage to where her boyfriend died with another girl. A young man abroad resists returning home for crucial medical treatment. A summer worker is drawn into a menage a trois with a colleague and his boss. From the scorched hillsides of Morocco and heat of a Californian summer to the ferocity of the Spanish afternoon and discomfort of a Scottish heatwave, Wayne Price's characters sweat under the glare of both the sun and their author's forensic gaze. Long-listed for the renowned Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Genres: Short Stories

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2012

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

probably 5 stars are too many for this book, as it has a couple of stories I didn't rate/get. However the writer really knocked me out in others, really painful, puzzled stories full of crisp images and dull lives. Often the thing the story was (seemed to be) about doesn't happen.In one for example a boy gets ready to go to a funeral, but as the character waits for a bus to take him there an incident occurs, involving a strange woman who has been in an accident and asks him to feel the wounds on her head. In another a man comes home from fishing, with fish, to his grumpy wife and there's been a murder upstairs and he has missed all the to-ing and fro-ing of the police. In another (my favourite) a man gives his son's girlfriend a lift home and is mistaken for her boyfriend by the girl's elderly father who also insists he stays the night.

These are characters caught out by life, puzzled, unable to set things right. The book is a little glum, a little perverse, rarely straightforward. People are often bedazzled by the sun (stories are set in Spain, North Africa and USA as well as rainier Britain/Scotland). Many won't like it; I loved it.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of thoroughly competent stories set mostly in Scotland or thereabouts. Tend toward the transitory and in-between, work to maintain distance and don't want to wrap up too neatly, and do, I suppose, warrant the Carver comparisons in some regard. Highlights: A teenager embarrassing family situations in "The Golfers"; a young traveler skirts desert disaster in the overtly Bowles-esque "The Wedding Flowers"; a barrister remembers a youthful affair in "Underworld"; a father tries to bond with his distant daughter in "Five Night Stay"; an immigrant student tracks a wounded, lost bird in "Rain"; a woman retraces a dead lover's steps in the Spanish countryside in "In The Valley"; and a man returns his son's underage girlfriend to her home in "There Is A Savior."

[Isaac L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nailed it.

This is the first I've ever read of Price - and I'm shocked at myself for it. The comparison to Carver on the cover is true to form, with most of his stories having that precise but quick and cool feel. Even the least in this collection would have been the best in most others', and the best are the kind of lingering, purely crafted stories that not only stick to the brain, but which you know you'll be returning to years from now.

The only downside may be that Furnace was published by Freight Books. I'm not sure if another publisher has picked up the title following their downfall but, for the sake of good literature coming out of Scotland, I hope so.

[Alasdair Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surely not my usual pick of books but I can honestly say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable collection of short stories, although I think the title is slightly misleading. Intensity and heat are surely a common thread to the stories, but more commonly is the extraordinary way in which seemingly ordinary events are laid out for the reader.

I get the impression from these stories that Price could take any average day from any average life and turn it into an intriguing and engrossing short, because that's essentially what these stories are. They are like glimpses into the lives of the random people you see in the street, no prologue, no epilogue, just glimpses and encounters that might happen to anyone.

I'll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

[A.P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strong first collection but I think Wayne Price will get better... and what a writer that may be.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing collection of well-written short stories, really enjoyed them.

[Dickson Telfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from one story, which I found to be flat (hence 4 rather than 5 stars), this is an excellent collection. Price makes every word count. Recommended.