Local Fires: Stories

by Joshua Jones

Chloe enters the local talent show, seeking fame, fortune and a ticket out of town. Meanwhile, her mother, Angie, wakes up hungover on the morning of her fourth wedding day. William ponders his impending autism diagnosis through the lenses of Descartes and Hollywood heartthrob Clive Owen. Jimmy, the hot-headed proprietor of a firework shop, rages at the emergence of a rival store, as his ex-wife considers the existential ramifications of her uncanny resemblance to TV cleaning personality Kim Woodburn.
Local Fires sees debut writer Joshua Jones turn his acute focus to his birthplace of Llanelli, South Wales. Sardonic and melancholic, joyful and grieving, these multifaceted stories may be set in a small town, but they have reach far beyond their locality. From the inertia of living in an ex-industrial working-class area, to gender, sexuality, toxic masculinity and neurodivergence, Jones has crafted a collection versatile in theme and observation, as the misadventures of the town's inhabitants threaten to spill over into an incendiary finale.
In this stunning series of interconnected tales, fires both literal and metaphorical, local and all-encompassing, blaze together to herald the emergence of a singular new Welsh literary voice.

Genres: Short Stories, LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

152 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 7, 2023

Reviews

[Joshua Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote it, so I might be biased, but I think it's pretty good! 🤷‍♀️

[Megan Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Local Fires is a masterful collection of interweaving short stories exploring the underbelly of small-town Welsh life.

One of the stories, It’s Black Country Out There, somehow manages to encompass generational Welsh grief in just 7 pages. I finished this story breathless with awe and anger.

I was inspired by the author’s bold experimentations with form, and was particularly moved by his depictions of Welshness, queerness and neurodivergence. The author has an extraordinary ability to zoom in on the mundanities of small-town Welsh life and morph them into these gorgeous character portraits that have a lasting impact on the reader.

This is essential reading for anyone who identifies as Welsh or otherwise and is a collection that I see myself returning to time and time again for many years to come.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love a short story collection, but I think this one needed some more time to cook. I found it pretty all over the place, trying to grapple with and present a lot of different ideas and themes, though not really spending enough time on any one thing to be all that effective. While short stories are, duh, short, they can still be meaty and hard hitting. These felt more like early drafts to me.

[Daniel Sheen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strong debut collection of linked stories, all centering on the Welsh seaside town of Llanelli. These quiet, beautifully observed tales contain real streets and are often (apparently) inspired by real events. We cover a wide variety of subjects; poverty, the inertia of once busy streets left to rot, working class hero's, gender, sexuality and toxic masculinity, along with a bittersweet longing for times long past, when perhaps the town was flourishing. It was also great to see plenty of queer and neurodivergent characters. However, what really made this stand apart from other collections was the way the stories were linked. You get all these tiny windows into all these disparate lives, with the main character of one story becoming the background character in another, and with everything joining up at the end in one final gorgeous tale where the whole town comes together around a burning church. Its very clever indeed. This is, what I would call, quiet prose, but hidden within these tales is a sorrowful underbelly, coupled with some truly breathtaking lines and a good few metaphors that I am, quite frankly, rather jealous of. This is a lyrical, poignant and empathic collection, about people and place. A time capsule snapshot of a slowly decaying town.

[Phil Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up "near Llanelli" the settings and situations were very real to me. I once worked on the painting of the interior of Capel Als so the area round there was very familiar. Having moved away some years ago now, it brought back memories and a sense of hiraeth, but strangely, no desire to go back there, Llanelli is firmly in my past.

[Freya Pigott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories set in/around Llanelli. Really neat the way they all link together and have this everyday yet surreal feeling all at once. The mood of it felt true to my childhood recollections of the town and visiting family there - the mention of Parc Trostre and the Scarlets unlocking some old memories 🗝️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[Beth]

Christmas gift from Sophie W 🎄

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a really special debut collection, the stories are all strong and interesting. the themes throughout are engaging, the characters are well rounded and individual and i really enjoyed the reading experience of this collection as a whole !!

side note: an absolutely gorgeous cover too.

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something exhilarating about a really good book of short stories and this book punches with the best of them. These interconnected tales, with characters roaming through several of them, are über modernist, culturally sophisticated and yet daringly down to earth. They portray the wastrel realism of a post industrial Llanelli and its working class inhabitants, all yearning for more or to be elsewhere or anything at all really, other than be where they are. The stupefyingly mundane is often counterpointed by moments of desperate frivolity. The characters encounter despair, loss, aggression, hope and hilarity as they trudge through their bewildering lives. Joshua Jones paints them in glorious, searing clarity. ‘It’s Black Country Out There’ is both surreal and realistic as it seems to sum up all of modern Wales with love and grief and is one the best short fictions I’ve ever read. The fractious honesty of these short stories will live in you like a cerebral haunting long after their truths have unravelled.

[Amber]

This book made me ache. Its brutally honest pages illuminate Llanelli in an unforgiving light, resurrecting memories that are both heartwarming and excruciating.

Stories set in your home town will always feel meaningful, but in the hands of a writer as accomplished and poetic as Joshua Jones, they will really make your heart sting.

Everyone should read this book.

[Keegan Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection of short stories. Jones sets each tale against the backdrop of his hometown in Wales, touching on key themes relatable to anyone who has grown up in a smaller town - such as toxic masculinity, poverty, desperation, identity, longing. It took me a few chapters before I picked up on the way Jones interweaves different characters from different stories - at first, I found myself flicking back to see if I missed any key clues about each person that kept popping up, but I appreciated the fact this ultimately wasn't necessary, and the manner with which Jones executes this technique subtly establishes a loose yet cohesive narrative, which is cleverly brought together in the penultimate story - these people are unimportant to each other's lives and conflicts, yet together make up the rich tapestry of the small town they inhabit. I really liked the almost 'Raymond Carver'-esque style of dry, seemingly bleak narrative voice, which - as time creeps on in each story - reveal an unreliable narrator of sorts, inviting the reader to firstly trust, then mistrust, then empathise with the characters. I quite liked a lot of the stylistic choices made throughout, though at times I felt some of the figurative language was forced and didn't quite fit the tone of the narrative voice being established, but a really impressive first novel full of authenticity and heart.

[pinkbubu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the debut of Joshua Jones more than I initially thought I would! It captivated me and I finished the book in one day 🤭 while reading I couldn’t help but appreciate the versatility in themes and the way they blend into each other naturally.
I’m glad I picked this book when I visited Cardiff for the first time, I was looking for something local and I wanted to get a small piece of Welsh literature!

[Julie Atherton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book because it’s on the long list for the Dylan Thomas prize . It’s a collection of interlinked short stories set in Llanelli in South Wales, where the author is from. I have read quite a lot of short story collections and this is one of the best I have read for a while, I thought it was brilliant and the characters will stay with me . I’m glad when I find a new author and I will look out for more of his work. I like to follow prizes because you can find some right gems . Throughly recommended.

[Gretel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb debut collection of interlinked short stories. "How Would Clive Owen Feel?" is some of the best writing about autism I've encountered.

[Posie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, sweet, enjoyable, insightful and very promising for Joshua Jones !!!!

[Millie Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic intertwined short stories - thank you Eirwen for lending it to me!

[Beth Shail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the interconnectedness of the stories and how they're based on the author's own home town.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of stories; each about a different resident of a post-industrial dying town in Wales. As with any collection of people, and stories, some stood out, and others not so much

[Benny · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked this a lot.

[Hanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5*

[Laura Latham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this - there's something really beautifully about the sense of community in this book while being cognisant of the town's shortcomings. I'd be interested to know if this book would have the same effect on someone reading it who isn't from Llanelli/has no knowledge of Llanelli, but this was a great read. Reminiscent of Girl, Woman, Other.

[Jodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…Evan, was proud to come from such a musical background. He learned piano at the Capel and was a good choir boy. He grew up in the Half Moon, played rugby for New Dock Stars, drank bitter from the age of sixteen and fell in love with a girl whose father owned a butcher’s.”

Local Fires is a stunning debut of short stories set in the town of Llanelli in South Wales. The stories are linked by character, place and themes such as addiction, poverty, life in a neglected town, toxic masculinity, and identity (to name a few). There’s a sense of melancholic nostalgia running through each story.

I really liked that some characters feature in multiple stories - a background character in one story is the lead character in another story, for example. I think that really added to the ‘life in a small town’ vibe because, of course, the characters would know each other in a place like that.

It’s very clever and modern in the style and narration, the writer experimenting with different voices and different methods of storytelling. Each story is like a brief, quiet glimpse into the life of the main character.
It reminded me of Dubliners by James Joyce, and when I was reading it I had that sense of reading something that I would have studied at uni (in a good way). I definitely think this will be a book that people will look back on in the future to give an idea of how life was in that time and that place.

The two stand-out stories for me were It’s Black Country Out There and A Congregation of Cygnets, but I also loved the The Fourth Wedding and Johnny Radio.

I think it’s one of those books that I could read over and over and find something new each time. A really impressive debut 👏

[beyond_blue_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually aching after reading this. Sorry - I may come back and write a better review, but I have more feelings than words right now.

[Daniella · Rating 2 out of 5]

the last half of the book felt like finishing a marathon (I’ve never run one, I just imagine you feel relieved when it’s over)

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now shortlisted for the 2024 Polari Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize

I read this book due to its longlisting for the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize – a prize for authors writing in English aged 39 and under (Thomas himself having died at that age) and run by the University of Swansea – the town where Thomas was born and grew up. The prize (reflecting Thomas’s versatility) is open to novels, short story collections, poetry collections and plays.

Of the 12 books announced on the longlist I had read 7, read previous books (all novels) by 3 of the authors (one listed for short stories and one for poems here) and knew another author (the second poet) as a 2023 Booker Judge – so this was the only author unknown to me. Although even here I did know the publisher – the Welsh independent Parthian Books whose “Hello Friend We Missed You” by Owain Roberts won the (last ever) 2020 Guardian Not The Booker Prize for which I was a judge.

Returning to the Dylan Thomas Prize …. in its first year it was won by a short story collection by a Welsh author and although I would not think of the prize as having a Welsh bias at all, this year’s longlist has no less than two short story collections by Welsh authors.

And there is an additional link between them as the author of this collection (Joshua Jones) actually reviewed the second collection (Thomas Morris’s “Open Up”) for the Wales Art Review (https://www.walesartsreview.org/open-...) where he talks about the influence Morris’s writing has on this very book:

When someone says a work of literature, or art has changed their life, it’s easy to meet the statement with a heavy eyeroll. As a young writer, working on the first drafts of what would become my own short story collection, Local Fires, I was recommended to read Thomas Morris’ debut collection, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing. Each story, set in Morris’ hometown of Caerphilly, I felt I had lived. I had walked the same streets as his characters’, experienced similar anxieties. I felt seen. It inspired me to alter the course of my own work, setting each story in my own home, Llanelli. Another deprived, semi-forgotten Welsh town where the people are directionless.

Which serves as an excellent introduction to this collection – which focuses very much on the author’s birth town of Llanelli and on the working class there, and particularly the lasting effects of post-industrialisation on diminishing community ties.

The sense of community and ties, however diminished, runs thorough this collection where the stories are connected enough that I think this book would easily pass the Booker Prize test of being “substantial and unified … long-form fiction”.

There is a partly autobiographical character in the novel – William Williams: autistic (like the author who was only diagnosed in his early twenties), a budding writer, and impacted in his writing by the 2015 fire which destroyed the disused Park Congregational Church (something the author experienced on the day he got the A Level results confirming his place at Southampton University and William sees in the closing story although in his case waiting to see if he can meet an offer from Bristol University – the City where the author lived while he studied Creative Writing at Bath Spa).

The collection opens story opens with one of three numbered “Brief Interview with Condemned Child #x” – transcribed interviews between police and some children arrested on seemingly unfounded suspicion of having caused the fire: the articulate interviewees instead indicating their views on the Llanelli economy (including some neat links to other stories).

The two part “Brief Wedding (I. Morning and II. Night)” is the story of Angie on the morning (hungover after a raucous hen do) and night (awake while her new middle-aged and overweight husband falls asleep, too drunk to consummate their relationship, despite his crude public promises when taking her upstairs from their wedding early) of her fourth wedding.

The story left me very uncertain with its start – Angie waking up near a pool of vomit, but really transformed over time: first we have Angie reflecting on the real “happiest day of her life” where she reluctantly visited a Rodin exhibition with her daughter Chloe only to be struck by The Age of Bronze (“It emanated strength, and a fragility, that felt very manly. Or what masculinity should be – vulnerable”) – thus bringing in a theme which runs through the collection: an examination of what masculinity means. The author describes themselves as Queer and interested in Queerness, but the examination of masculinity here looks firmly at what even cis-hetero masculinity means and can be bought to mean, particularly in a world where its traditional heavy-industry underpinnings have been taken away. And this comes across beautifully at the story’s surprisingly tender ending – Angie admiring her husband’s form (“his knee, his beautiful knee, crooked at he right angle”) while he tenderly checks how she is.

This really impressive opening to the collection is followed by “How Would Clive Owen Feel” where we first meet William, as he first understands he may be autistic.

“Opportunity Street” has Jimmy, the author of the town’s firework shop, attending (in fury) the opening of a rival firework shop by a recovering alcoholic (Jimmy’s own battle with addiction a more losing one). Not my favourite story in the collection as Jimmy’s violent thoughts are a little too extreme, but with a nicely enigmatic ending which suddenly shifts forwards in time.

“The Episode Where Homer and Marge Sleep With Danger” is one-side of a dialogue between two teenage old-flames at the funeral of one of their schoolfriends.

“Half Moon, New Year” – features a group of youngsters outside a IRL Llanelli pub on New Year’s Eve interrupted by a drunken assault by the notorious Danny Jenkins – again a story redeemed by its ending, the seemingly wasted and violent Danny struck by a sudden bout of melancholy for the simplicity of childhood.

“Tommy” is set in an AA group

“Under the Belt, Above The Bed” is an encounter between Bertie (Angie’s son who transitioned from Bella) and a drag artist – talking about queerness, transitioning and much more.

“Its Black Country Out There” is excellent albeit something of an exception to the novel – a story partly surreal and politically striking about the black holes that have opened up across Welsh towns since Aberfan disaster (holes both physical in the narrow world of the story and metaphorical as we read it as they related to the economic run-down of Wales) as well as linking to a wider history

Why Aberfan?
Why didn’t black holes crop up across the country after Senghennydd, or after an estimated fifteen thousand Welsh soldiers were killed during WWII, and almost a thousand children lost their lives in air raids?
What about the loss of Welsh language; the forced removal due to English sovereignty, Henry VIII’s Act of Union in 1536; or phases of immigration to North America, Australia and beyond; the emigration of English language speakers to Wales during the Industrial Revolution; the forty thousand Welsh people at home during WWII who didn’t speak English, who had only twenty minutes of Welsh broadcasted by the BBC per day, who felt this was England’s war, not theirs?
In 1993, the Welsh Language Bill gave Welsh the same equal status as English, yet we, the Welsh, still continue to fight for its dignity, the respect our language deserves. Our history.
What about our grief, our anger?
Why isn’t there a black hole for every lost community? For Blwych y Gwynt, Machynys, Brynmefys—these are just in Llanelli. Capel Celyn, the forced eviction of an entire village and flooded to create a freshwater reserve for Liverpool in 1965; Llanwddyn, flooded in 1888 to also create a reservoir for Liverpool; Temperance Town (destroyed in the 1930s to build a bus station), Newtown and Tiger Bay just three of the lost districts of Cardiff.
Why are there not black holes the size of a village for every lost or abandoned community?

“Johnny Radio” is a beautifully poignant story of an ageing man, living with his widowed daughter and teenage grandchildren, probably suffering with dementia and as adrift in society as say a teenage William, searching for the radio he listens to with the news it brings of local events and with one sentence which sweeps across the collection:

Johnny loved hearing what was happening in the town, and there is never a dull moment. Some of his most memorable stories include a brawl in the Half Moon on New Year’s Eve one year, a new fireworks shop opening in town, a young writer from the area had received a book deal, a few kids had been arrested in relation to the Park Church Fire.

“Nos Da, Popstar” was a brilliant way to link the collection – Angie’s daughter Chloe, something of the star of the first story, performs for the first time at a local talent show (singing a Cocteau Twins number) with other performers including characters from “Opportunity Street”, “Under the Belt, Above the Bed” and the next story …..

“Who are you calling Kim Woodburn” – featuring the divorced wife of Jimmy (we have already met her later in time both in “Nos Da, Popstar” and then later “Opportunity Street”. Here she is running a café, notoriously tough as seen by her customers but also secretly kind to her two workers – the Romanian Maria and Martyna - and resolutely focused on the hygiene ratings for her café.

“A Congregation of Cygnets” has William seeing the whole community (including many of the characters in other stories – and cleverly for example in a few lines I was suddenly able to both visualise and understand the main character in another story: “Johnny Radio, head to toe in official Scarlets merchandise, [shuffling] though the crowd, his digital radio under his arm … listening to the Wave’s hosts report on the fire while watching the flame’s theatrics in front of him”

Overall an excellent book and really impressive debut collection which thoroughly merits its longlisting.

William felt no jealousy, no bitterness nor rejection, watching the journalist write his notes and ask Nia for quotes. For the first time that summer he felt like something had happened to him, something that he could write about.—I wish your grandfather was here to see this, William. He would have loved the community coming together like this.

[Ian Onion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it local? Set in Llanelli with a diverse range of interconnected characters who want to be anywhere else - there is a Swan-sea! – Joshua Jones debut short-story collection smoulders and fizzes.

The collection as a whole imbues a sense of oppressive, claustrophobic small town post-industrial decay and dereliction, working class people who have been left behind. Lifted by the West Walian setting, which is rich in character and culture, the stories reach beyond the local. Jones gives a sympathetic voice to a diversity of individuals.

Call me old-fashioned but my favourite story is ‘Who Are You Calling Kim Woodburn?’ because I think this is a more complete story with an opening scene, dissonance, and resolution. Most of the stories I would describe as vignettes, or literary sketches, rather than entire short stories.

[Hannah Rigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really good, not quite great, but really good. Jones tenderly looks at the lives of a select group in his hometown of Llanelli, exploring themes of grief, sexuality, identity, neurodiversity, class, and ultimately, the decay of the seaside town. I think what was most enjoyable was just how realistic it all felt - though I am English, the town’s reality was strikingly ‘British’, something seen all over, that I could really picture. How to make it great? Well, I think it was lacking a little oomph - the power of the story was felt in some places, while other stories struggled to get the same level of depth for me. Would recommend.

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selfishly I wish I could have written this myself.

Not from Llanelli myself but I feel like I know the people in this book from my own (Welsh, working class) community, the inertia of my own home town and people’s lives around here, etc.
Neither judging nor condemning, the author/narrator/voice in these stories reminded me of Dylan Thomas’s treatment of his characters in Under Milk Wood.
Achingly nostalgic, gut punching reading at times, and I really felt this as I read the fleeting description of the older woman in the pub on NYE who tells the young girls that they look lush.

I loved it. Class.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The word ‘uneven’ is often applied to short story collections, but ‘imbalanced’ is more appropriate here. ‘The Fourth Wedding’, ‘It’s Black Country Out There’, ‘Radio Johnny’ and ‘Who Are You Calling Kim Woodburn?’ are all stories where dialogue, humour and description are well-balanced by Jones, forming memorable characters and making interesting observations about the state of small-town Wales. However, the other stories can suffer from an imbalance of too much dialogue or description, or not enough humour, to create an engaging story.

His use of language is fresh and the writing clearly benefits from his experimentation - his metaphors are novel and clear - and his experience in poetry. But, again, certain stories suffer from dense imagery that pulls you out of the narrative, even when it’s beautiful. Similarly, not every focal character is afforded the same level of depth. It feels like there was a rush and a fear of missing out in writing these stories; that if the metaphors weren’t used here, they were going to waste.

I’ve studied in Wales and the recording of the general types of people, the decaying high street and the ever-leaving youth definitely spoke to my experience. Even the Oxfams are closing now! This book is more observational than a commentary on the issues it touches on in the end. Many of the perspectives offered up are interesting but basic, and would benefit from a longer, deeper exploration.

That said, I’m confident Jones is headed there and I’m looking forward to catching his work around, in Folding Rock and beyond. I think reading this book soon after Thomas Morris’s ‘We Don’t Know What We’re Doing’, which spends longer on developing each story, drew a comparison and it’s Morris’s book that I rate ever so slightly higher.

[Ben Huxley]

A beautiful ode to Llanelli. But I saw a lot of my own Welsh hometown in here, too. In fact I'm sure many readers from small towns will see their communities in these pages.

A stand out story is Half Moon, New Year. Before I quit drinking, many of my evenings were like that. The gender and age dynamics, the urge for a fix, the and the sadness fuelling it all - Jones writes it with perfect understanding, and mastery of language.