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It Doesn’t Matter When
105 pages, Paperback
Published July 3, 2024
About the author
Lizzie Eldridge
4 books18 followersLizzie Eldridge grew up in Glasgow and after 15 years teaching theatre in UK universities, she moved to Malta to work as a writer, actor and teacher. She returned to Glasgow in December 2019 where she continues to work as a freelance writer and teacher.
Lizzie is also a political activist and is heavily involved in the fight to get justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist assassinated in Malta in 2017. This informs Lizzie's journalistic work as well as her creative fiction and she was recently elected to the board of Scottish PEN.
Lizzie's first novel, Duende, was published in 2011 and is now available in its second edition (2014): http://amzn.to/1LV7WHp This book is set in Spain in the period leading up to civil war.
Lizzie's second novel, Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015), is set in Glasgow and was shortlisted for the award of Best Novel by the National Book Council of Malta.
Vandalism was also selected as one of Waterstones Glasgow's Best Books Christmas 2017.
Vandalism is available in bookshops in Malta and Glasgow as well as on Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2t91IlV
Lizzie is also a political activist and is heavily involved in the fight to get justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist assassinated in Malta in 2017. This informs Lizzie's journalistic work as well as her creative fiction and she was recently elected to the board of Scottish PEN.
Lizzie's first novel, Duende, was published in 2011 and is now available in its second edition (2014): http://amzn.to/1LV7WHp This book is set in Spain in the period leading up to civil war.
Lizzie's second novel, Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015), is set in Glasgow and was shortlisted for the award of Best Novel by the National Book Council of Malta.
Vandalism was also selected as one of Waterstones Glasgow's Best Books Christmas 2017.
Vandalism is available in bookshops in Malta and Glasgow as well as on Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2t91IlV
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 28, 2024
This is a short collection of very short stories - just over a hundred pages, two or three pages at most in each story. But it is not an easy read.
It is not easy because the stories are often dark. Some are outright horror, but many are disturbing or (the word that first came to mind) harrowing in both content and subject matter. They deal with the darker side of life. Loss, injustice, pain, anger. Even those with a lighter side are at most, bitterweet. Take, for example, the stories that deal with the fading and passing of a much loved father. In some ways, quite uplifting, as they show someone at the end of life who is still full of joy and gratitude: they left me hoping that I might show some of those qualities when my time comes. But non-the-less, it is loss, and it is grieving.
It is also not easy because they are sometimes very subjective. They come from a unique point of view, from the writer’s very personal perspective, and she does not dilute her vision to make it more palatable or accessible. Many of these stories present an intellectual challenge, you have to take time to ponder and think on what is being said. And sometimes I found myself having to simply accept what I read, not understanding but letting the flow of the words carry me towards a deeper connection.
And what words they are! Lizzie Eldridge has a talent for vividness, for descriptions that give a whole new way of looking at the world, a way of seeing things that may not be comfortable but which carry a powerful reality into the readers mind. There are no cliches here!
Sad, unpleasant, challenging or just difficult to grasp, these are stories which give the opportunity to share something deep and real. To stand alongside people in darkness. To perhaps even develop some empathy for those whose life experience is so different from our own.
‘Poetry is there, it’s there in everything’ Eldridge says in one of these stories (All that have dark sounds, page 37). In this collection she shows us what that means.
It is not easy because the stories are often dark. Some are outright horror, but many are disturbing or (the word that first came to mind) harrowing in both content and subject matter. They deal with the darker side of life. Loss, injustice, pain, anger. Even those with a lighter side are at most, bitterweet. Take, for example, the stories that deal with the fading and passing of a much loved father. In some ways, quite uplifting, as they show someone at the end of life who is still full of joy and gratitude: they left me hoping that I might show some of those qualities when my time comes. But non-the-less, it is loss, and it is grieving.
It is also not easy because they are sometimes very subjective. They come from a unique point of view, from the writer’s very personal perspective, and she does not dilute her vision to make it more palatable or accessible. Many of these stories present an intellectual challenge, you have to take time to ponder and think on what is being said. And sometimes I found myself having to simply accept what I read, not understanding but letting the flow of the words carry me towards a deeper connection.
And what words they are! Lizzie Eldridge has a talent for vividness, for descriptions that give a whole new way of looking at the world, a way of seeing things that may not be comfortable but which carry a powerful reality into the readers mind. There are no cliches here!
Sad, unpleasant, challenging or just difficult to grasp, these are stories which give the opportunity to share something deep and real. To stand alongside people in darkness. To perhaps even develop some empathy for those whose life experience is so different from our own.
‘Poetry is there, it’s there in everything’ Eldridge says in one of these stories (All that have dark sounds, page 37). In this collection she shows us what that means.
October 30, 2024
Will still go back and dip in and out of this book, though. Love it
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews