Erase and Rewind

by Meghan Bell

An assault survivor realizes she can rewind time and relives the experience in order to erase it. A teen athlete wonders why she isn’t more afraid of death when the plane carrying her team catches fire. The daughter of a superhero ruminates on how her father neglected his children to pursue his heroics. Two shut-in depressives form a bond on Twitter while a deadly virus wipes out most of the population of North America.

The stories in Erase and Rewind probe the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society. Told from the perspective of various female protagonists, they pick at rape culture, sexism in the workplace, uneven romantic and platonic relationships, and the impact of trauma under late-stage capitalism. Quirky, intelligent, and darkly comic, Meghan Bell's debut collection is a highwire balance of levity and gravity, finding the extraordinary in common experiences.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Audiobook, Feminism

Audible Audio

First published May 18, 2021

About the author

Meghan Bell is the author of Erase and Rewind (Bookhug, 2021), and a writer and artist based in Vancouver. Her work has appeared in The Walrus, The Tyee, Prairie Fire, Grain, Rattle, and CV2, among others. She joined the editorial board of Room Magazine in 2011, and was the magazine's publisher from 2015-2019. During this time, she co-founded the Growing Room Literary Festival and acted as the lead editor and project manager of the anthology, Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine (Caitlin Press, 2017).

Reviews

[Rosh ~catching up slowly~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a Nutshell: An anthology with each story written in the style of literary fiction So what you get a slightly slow, character-oriented sketches with intense topics and no HEAs. I liked it!


This debut collection contains thirteen stories covering many dark themes such as closet homosexuality, unwanted pregnancy, sexual abuse, workplace sexism and so on. Many stories are in first person singular. All stories except one are from the point of view of female protagonists. Some tales are really depressing, while others end with a tinge of hope. None of the stories fall into your typical ‘happy ending’ style with all ends tied up. This is more of a thinker’s anthology than a beginner reader’s one.

The stories are set in Vancouver, but the location is not optimally used as the narrative style focusses more on the person than on the place. But you do get a glimpse of life in Vancouver, and the local passion for ice hockey.

Many of the thirteen stories fell in between the 3-4 star range for me. I think this might have been different had I read the book instead of hearing it and my rating could have been higher. (Literary fiction is best enjoyed when read, IMHO.) Some of my favourite stories from this collection (4+ stars) were:

• Erase and Rewind - About a girl who discovers that she can reverse time. (Or maybe I should say "erase and rewind" time) Written very interestingly as it begins on day 12 and goes backwards. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

• Most Likely to Break – “When you are older, you'll understand.” So says an elder sister to her younger sister. And the story reveals whether she does. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• From a High Place – How a friendship between two film industry professionals evolves from a basic affability into a caring and concerned relationship. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• I Was Made To Love You (which is actually the script of a film developed by one of the characters in the previous story) – About how far things can go in sacrificing for love. This was brilliant, but way too complicated for audio. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Nostalgia – Two young friends volunteering at a local swimming pool and reminiscing over Disney movies. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Anhedonia – The BEST story of the book! And one of the best short stories I've read this year. So scary, but so well-written! Mentions how a viral pandemic brings the world to a standstill. (The virus in this tale is so deadly that I started heaving a sigh of relief that we had only the covid-19 in reality. Can you imagine that!?!) - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

An audiobook for short stories is always a risky proposition. You really need to pay a lot of attention as the stories end quickly and there isn’t enough buffer time for daydreaming. 😉 This audiobook is quite brief, clocking at just 5 hrs 22 minutes. So within this short time, you hear thirteen stories with a variety of characters and situations. There is only one narrator for all the stories, and as I said, all have female protagonists. So if your concentration level for audiobooks is at a rudimentary level, things get a bit confusing, and I would recommend you not try this anthology through listening but through reading.

My experience with this audiobook was mixed. While I am a habituated audiobook reader, I still found myself confusing the end points for a couple of stories. Also, there is a LOT of cussing, way more than needed (if ever it is needed!); I hated the constant f-bombs pouring into my ears. However, no complaints about narrator Stefanie Nakamura. She does her job well and enunciates the stories properly.

Overall, I enjoyed this anthology quite a lot, but I am sure I would have enjoyed it even more had I read it. For a debut collection, the stories are outstanding. Definitely recommended to those who want to try lit-fic in a shorter version.

Can’t go without saying ‘Kudos!’ to the brilliant cover design. One of the best I’ve seen this year and perfect for this book.


My thanks to Book*hug Press, ECW Press Audio, and NetGalley for the ALC of “Erase and Rewind”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.



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[Jacqueline Firkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bell's sharp, insightful prose weaves a panoply of tales that tie together around themes of feminism, human contradictions, the frequent gap between aspiration and accomplishment, and the jungle of relationships we navigate as we search for love and fulfillment on our own terms. This isn’t a light read, and there are no Happily Ever Afters for Bell’s protagonists, but these stories beautifully capture the ways people move through a world that delivers different messages to men than it does to women. From sexual assault to a superhero dad, from complicated pregnancies to viral infection, E&R is a compelling collection that tackles feminism with nuance, frustration, and underlying hope for a changing world.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

ERASE AND REWIND by Meghan Bell is a fantastic debut short story collection! I was really eager to read this book since it’s written by a local author and I loved this collection! These stories explore coming of age and the intricacies of being a woman in today’s society told with sharp and bold writing. I felt such a connection to several of these stories since they were set in my city of Vancouver. All but one of these stories had female main characters who had to deal with extremely relatable issues. There were some shocking parts in several of the stories that kept me on edge but I enjoyed all the stories. My fave was Lighthouse Park and now this is my fave short story collection of the year so far!
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Thank you to Book*hug Press for my advance reading copy!

[Sarah (more.books.than.days) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of intelligent and precisely written short stories that flow together like one novel. Bell writes candid, deeply relatable moments centred on the assumptions and realities of existing in society as a girl/woman.

Each story features a different female protagonist, in what feels like a true to life situation. Through the commoness of the situations comes the intelligent layering of social commentary. Megan Bell is able to create an undercurrent of dialogue on coming of age as a woman, on what it means to be feminist, on rape culture, internalized mysogeny, sexism in the workplace, mental health, and on the many facets of unbalanced relationships, both sexual and platonic.

Each story, and each woman feels unique, and yet the tone of the stories remains connected, so that one feeds into, and enriches, the next. If you open up the book and simply read the first page, you will know what you can expect from the whole.

I read the whole book in a day, something that speaks to the ease with which the reader can settle into Bell's storytelling. The title story, Erase and Rewind, is brilliantly written, and easily one of the most stunning short stories I've read in years. Even the stories that weren't my favourite, were ones I would reread.

[Zsa Zsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Underrated
Ps I love stories that happen to happen in my city/country.
Sexual assault and grooming triggers but I guess you can’t go around talking about women experiences without many of the triggers. All of us have experienced one form of abuse or other. The more we talk about it, the more powerful we become, together and alone.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Later, when I told Sara what happened, she clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white, and said, "I'll fucking kill him. Both of them maybe." Rage had always looked good on Sarah. Her eyes were vibrant and intense. Her skin glowed. "No, you won't, I said. "I'll beat him within an inch of death." "I'm fine Sara, I'm fine. It wasn't that big a deal. Besides," I said, "I started it." Sara looked at me for a long time. I couldn't read her expression, but it made me want to sink so far into her sofa, I disappeared. Finally, she spoke. "If that's the narrative you can live with." I told her I didn't understand, and she told me I would when I was older. And true to her word, one day I was older, and I understood."~pg.49
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🌿
Thoughts ~
Bell's searing debut brought me back into my girlhood youth. A time of confusion, and life lessons not yet know. This collection of thirteen coming of age stories felt interconnected in ways as each is told from a female protagonists and centers around existing as a woman in todays society. With themes of rape culture, trauma, relationships of friendship and sexual natures, pregnancy, sexism and feminism. All told with dark humour and tenderness. I love that Bell is a local author too and that locations in these stories were places I have been. Bell is going to be one to watch!

My favorites were:
~Erase and Rewind
~Most Likely To Break
~Thunderstruck
~The Mandrake

Thank you to @bookhug_press
for sending me this book opinions are my own.
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For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[Phil Della · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand why this collection of stories is called Erase and Rewind. It's because that's the name of the best story in the book. Mind you, there are lots of strong stories in here. It is certainly a Vancouver, BC book, with many references to the city, and beyond that it is very Canadian. There are a few female hockey player stories (I'm going from memory, so don't quote me) and beyond that it is as if the writer were fulfilling a challenge to tell as many stories in as creative a way as possible. Hence the Screenplay story, the comments section story, the YOU point of view story -- which appears to be a requirement in a collection like this. It does help to vary the fare and keeps it from feeling repetitive, and it's partly why I like this book so much. I guess this is what good writing looks like.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some great stories in here. The author seems really cool and smart!

[Lorraine Berry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book does live up to the blurb, in that it does explore the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society and also does touch on sexism in the workplace, amongst other hot topics. Unfortunately, I found this contained in several mediocre short stories which really were not much to write home about.

Thank you to ECW Press Audio and NegGallery and apologies that I did not enjoy this one more.

[Zachary Houle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back when I was writing fiction — which seems to be a long time ago — I got a first-hand look at how hard it was to sell (longish) short stories and stories that had a surrealist bent. It took an incredibly special market, indeed, to accept a piece that was set in realist mode but had a talking cartoon penguin as part of the story. Surrealist stories are a hard sell to literary markets, especially in Canada it seems (at least to me), so it is extremely rewarding to find something of a somewhat kindred spirit in Vancouver-writer Meghan Bell. Her debut story collection, Erase and Rewind, is being published by a small Canadian press, but it has at least three or four stories in it that could be construed as being a bit fabulist or strange — including one about a pandemic that was written and originally published well before the current situation with COVID-19. I’m happy to have stumbled across these stories, as they provide a bit of validation for my work as a fiction writer.

However, I must admit that I’m a bit on the fence about Erase and Rewind, partially because it is unfocused — the vast majority of the pieces are “normal” (for lack of a better word) slices of literary fiction — and partially because it is really hard to find a male character in any of these stories who doesn’t turn out to be at least a little bit of a jerk. On the other hand, I like the fact that Bell wrestles with the question of what makes a feminist a feminist in these stories (in part, because I’ve wrestled with the concept too: feminism, to me, just seems to be a blanket way of making every man seem to be a monster). The narrators in Bell’s stories, and I think that most of them were written in the first-person singular, are grappling with what makes a woman a woman and how to navigate the rough terrain between the differences in the sexes, or sometimes the same sex.

Read the rest of the review here: https://zachary-houle.medium.com/a-re...

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an audio book, this was difficult to listen to as all the stories just blurred together. It didn't help that all the main characters felt like carbon copies of each other. There was no real distinguishing features that made them stand out from each other. As well as this, the stories didn't really come to an 'end' or conclusion which didn't help with the 'blurring together of the stories.' They were very much a 'slice' of the characters' life, but it just made the stories feel unfinished and the characters underdeveloped.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the sensibility of. the first person narrators. It felt true to life and insightful—and as a former screenwriter, really was delighted with the screenwriting format of "I Was Made To Love You." Thanks for a great read!

[h. duxbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite short story collection, but Erase and Rewind and Anhedonia are solid short stories worth reading. The narrative voice doesn't really change, so the collection has a certain monotony, but it is thought provoking.

[Crystal Palmisano-Dillard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it’s just me but 2020/2021 have been hard enough without reading depressing short stories too.