When There's Nowhere Else to Run

by Murray Middleton

In one way or another, isn't everyone on the run?

A survivor of Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires takes asylum with old friends in the Dandenong Ranges. An editor-in-chief drives his sister halfway around the country to an east-coast rehabilitation clinic. A single mother flies to Perth with her autistic son for one last holiday. A father at the end of his tether tries to survive the chaos of the Sydney Royal Easter Show. A group of young friends hire a luxury beach house in the final weeks of one of their lives. A postman hits a pedestrian and drives off into the night.

When There's Nowhere Else to Run is a collection of stories about people who find their lives unravelling. They are teachers, lawyers, nurses, firemen, chefs, gamblers, war veterans, hard drinkers, adulterers, widows and romantics. Seeking refuge all across the country, from the wheat belt of Western Australia, the limestone desert of South Australia, the sugarcane towns of Queensland, the hinterland of New South Wales to the coastline of Victoria, they discover that no matter how many thousands of kilometres they put between themselves and their transgressions, sometimes there's nowhere else to run.

'Masterfully controlled, lingers long in the memory.' Rohan Wilson, author of The Roving Party and To Name Those Lost

'Assured, witty and wise.' Stephen Romei, Literary Editor, The Australian

'Vivid and compelling.' Jenny Barry, BooksPlus

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Australia, Contemporary

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 2015

About the author

Murray Middleton was born with fractured hips in 1983. He spent the first three months of his life in plaster and has broken most bones since.

He won The Age Short Story Award in 2010 with ‘The Fields of Early Sorrow’. When There’s Nowhere Else to Run is his first published collection of short stories.

He currently lives in Melbourne and won’t publish a second collection of stories until the Saints win a second premiership.

Reviews

[Boy Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It got me thinking that seeing death in the faces of the living might be scarier than seeing an open casket."

"For all of the effort we made, what Raymond seemed to like the most of all was sitting out on the porch in the morning, eating his raisin toast."

The stories are good reads. For many Australians they will seem very familiar.

However, I couldn't help compare this to Tim Winton's The Turning (especially with the reference to Cloudstreet in Jubilee Mile) and it seems to come up a bit short. It has a similar sort of ambition with a slightly different target, Middleton looks at more of an urban elite than Winton's rural crew. While Middleton may often displace his characters from their urban jungle there's no doubt they are city slickers. This is compounded by the way Middleton's characters seemed to be defined by class stereotypes rather than their own personalities. The stories function almost exactly as you would expect with just a faint absurdist touch. In contrast Winton's characters are defined by their own unique characteristics, they feel like real people not cardboard cut-outs.

Middleton's prose is easy to read and written in very much the modern Australian vernacular. In saying this there are few sentences that take your breath away in the way Winton's sentences do. Middleton's prose lacks Winton's lyricism and presents itself as more clinical and even more business like.

I could see certain people loving Middleton's work because they subconsciously recognise their own trials and tribulations in the stories, or they see similarities with people they know. I can also see certain people hating his work because of the way it at times feels like both an apology and celebration of the trivial "first world problems" of a self-obsessed urban elite.

[Emmy9394 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional and beautifully written, each short story is a simple yet stunning read. My favourite was the title story - a group of young friends rent a beach house to celebrate the last weeks of one of their party's life. Totally devastating, Middleton has captured the humanity in grief and desperation in each of the stories. Brilliant.

For my full review, visit my blog: https://emilythebookaddict.wordpress....

[Dana King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, giving a snapshot to the many ways misfortune can crop up in life...
And so nice to read stories with an Australian setting.

[Peter Dickerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murray Middleton's #VogelsAward winning collection of short stories consists of sad and "real" stories about life, families and relationships in the Australian suburbs.

Everyone in these stories seems a bit impoverished and relatively unhappy. Life seems to be a struggle. No one seems to be really doing much with themselves.

The characters are interesting, there is no unpleasantness, the stories are about life and how it progresses, and how the characters and even ourselves interact with each other.

Some of the stories are brutally sad and seem real.

I do think that the story Burnt Hill Farm is fascinating.

Jubilee Mile is beautifully written and the characters are vividly described.

The Fields of Early Sorrow is a graphic look at mental illness and how we may deal with it. The desolation in the collection in general, but in particular with this story and Hinterland is really interesting. The stories are bleak and grey. We can empathise with the characters and feel part of what they are enduring.

The collection is really interesting reading. The Australian urban landscape setting, and the general character of the stories, adds a great dimension to them which I really enjoyed. When There's Nowhere Else to Run was deserving of the #VogelsAward which I heard about on ABC News Breakfast just after it was announced.

[S.C. Karakaltsas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it difficult to get into the first couple of stories but warmed to the style of this author. The stories set a mood that I enjoyed and was sorry to finish when I read the last story of the book.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous collection of short stories and a very worthy winner of this year's Vogel Literary Award.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually try to keep up with the Vogel Prize, because it’s been a great predictor of fine writing over the years, with winners like Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, Gillian Mears and Brian Castro, and more recently Christine Piper (After Darkness) and Rohan Wilson (The Roving Party) amongst others. This year, however, the award takes me out of my comfort zone because it was awarded for only the second time ever, to a collection of short stories (and as you all know, I prefer my fiction in the form of the novel).

As it happens, reading the winning collection, Murray Middleton's When There’s Nowhere Else to Run coincides with reading a collection called Family Room by Indonesian author Lily Yulianti Farid - because I’m going to be ‘in conversation’ with Lily at the Bendigo Writers’ Festival in August. The contrast between these two collections couldn’t be greater, because (as you will see when I finish reading Lily’s book and write my review) she is wrestling with the remarkable social and political changes of the post-Suharto era while also interrogating feminist issues in a patriarchal society. The quiet, reflective tone of Middleton’s book seems to lack passion and energy by comparison but that may be the appeal for some readers.

And yet, it’s an interesting collection. In settings from Perth to the eastern seaboard, his stories focus on people whose lives are falling apart. It’s a pessimistic view of the world because these people all seem to be trapped by their circumstances, with ‘nowhere else to run’. One which tore at my heartstrings was ‘Mainstream’, in which the mother of an autistic son has had enough and wants to offload the stress of caring for a child with a disability. Another that indirectly gives voice to a traumatised survivor of the Black Saturday bushfires is a poignant study of an adolescent’s struggle to empathise because he is preoccupied with the normal life of a teenager (and especially his first girlfriend) and – as you’d expect with a boy of his age - he’s out of his depth in dealing with grief and trauma.

I sometimes heard Mum and Dad talking about Raymond in their bedroom at night. They never argued. I could tell they were talking about him because their conversations were in a different pitch than usual. It was a strange thing. When I heard them talking, I realised how little trouble I must have given them over the years.

I couldn’t say whether Raymond overheard their conversations from the study, or if he did, whether he cared. I figured that our aim was to help him feel normal again. I had no idea what constituted ‘normal’. Before I met Courtney, I thought that I was painfully normal. I wondered whether Raymond had been normal before he moved to Marysville, with all that sugar swimming through his veins. All I concluded was that once the state was lost, whatever it was, it probably became impossible to find again.

Mum and Dad did their best to keep Raymond away from the papers in case something about the Royal Commission popped up. They didn’t mind me leaving the sports section on the table. (p. 7)

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/07/15/wh...

[Jesse Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deserving of the Vogel Award. Middleton has a great ability to get under the skin of "normal" Australian life and examine the raw pain and doubt that everyone experiences. The stories vary enough in tone, mostly via the age/gender/social mobility of the central character(s), to keep them more than interesting and look at different facets of the human condition. My personal favourite was "Burnt Hill Farm", which looks through the eyes of several members of a family group as they grow up and fall out via their yearly group holiday.

Simple, compassionate, powerful.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a perplexing collection of stories. Some were outstanding, beautifully composed with a perfect sense of place. A few of the others reminded me of some of the stories I wrote at uni which, to be quite frank, were rubbish.

The homage to Tim Winton (clearly an influence) in Jubilee Mile was a nice touch.

[Sharmayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just devoured this book. No wonder he won the Vogel Literary Award.

[Corrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

So hard to rate. When short stories are good, they're so bloody good. Some gloriously full yet sparse loveliness in here...seriously wonderful. Not all killers though.

[Kylie Peel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent short stories!! Can't wait til he writes another book!!!

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not particularly fond of short stories. I seem to need more words and more ideas to get into characters. This collection has certainly garnered a range of reviews and I agree (to some degree) with most of them. There's the sameness of tone that is both a strength and a weakness. There is a wonderful array of places but often the reader is required to bring their knowledge of the place to play. There are some moving stories and some ho hum ones.

But for all my ambivalence, I'm glad I read them.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

most of these stories received 2 or 3 star ratings from me. I appreciated how the author ttied to bring some diversity into the stories but overall it felt very male dominated especially with all the sports and betting references. female characters felt very 2 dimesional (as did some pf the male characters). Overall I just don't think this author is for me.

[Sarah de Jong · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in this book are quintessentially Australian and many, but not all, drew me in or carried me away. But I was often left feeling a little unsatisfied. I like stories to have a solid beginning, middle and end. I felt most of these stories were snippets of larger stories, and while that can work for a short story it doesn’t work for a whole book of them. Not for me anyway.

[Ms Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m giving this a 3.5 and like others, am finding it hard to rate. He writes honestly, yet simply and the stories were interesting, but not captivating. Middleton’s stories are quintessentially Australian. Honest, sound and good.

[Giovanna Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have said, some stories stronger than others. I liked the sense of place, and the showing not telling about the characters, when you could kind of guess what was happening to them by the observations made by the author, make of their life what you will. Read in a day. Easy read.

[Matthew M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Depicts a range of Australian settings, each varied and precise.
Characters at a crossroads in their lives, their suffering is palpable.
Narratives are lean and pacing is tight.
Prose is thoughtful and descriptions are provoking.
Enjoyed this collection thoroughly.
5 stars.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good short stories but I wanted to know more about the characters....would like to see some of these turned into full stories.

[Justine Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional and accurate Australian stories of life
Burnt Hill Farm really made me feel something

[Adam Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Incredable short stories that deal with the brutal realities of everyday life.

[Cathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all short story collections some I liked more than others but the overall mood was good.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Depressing but we'll written.

[Stephanie Ashton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning writing. Easy to see why it was awarded a Vogel.

[Wendy Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of the short story form and this is a great collection of stories. Characters wrestle with unspoken thoughts that must never be spoken or responsibilities they would rather not have. Many of the stories hinge on moments in time when everything could change but doesn't or everything couldn't possibly change but does. Vignettes of life observed with restrained emotional resonance in an Australian setting.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

In When There’s Nowhere Else to Run, we meet a cast of characters who, as the title suggests, are all running away from something; some literally, others figuratively. The past is a common thread throughout a series of unrelated stories, and while it works to link the stories together, it also lends a sense of nostalgia to the collection. This is most apparent in the final piece, ‘The Gift of Life’, which is reminiscent of Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones and its ability to capture childhood spent in an Australian summer. A particular highlight for this reader was ‘Queen Adelaide Restaurant’, featuring a writer who has just won a short story competition and takes a trip on the Indian Pacific with some of his winnings.

This story gave an almost autobiographical element to the collection and a sense of self-awareness, particularly when the writer receives the following advice on writing characters from an elderly gentleman:

“I know characters don’t necessarily have to be likeable. Most of us aren’t. But surely they’ve got to make us feel something, or reflect on something, otherwise they’re just words and descriptions on a page…”

Middleton seems to have taken his own character’s advice, because his creations succeed in encouraging the reader to reflect. For the most part the characters aren’t likeable, but their emotions are real and they are relatable in their normality.

Along with his characters, it’s this ability to capture the ordinary and make it readable that is Middleton’s strength. His writing is comfortable to read and while not every story is perfect – some, such as ‘Hinterland’, weren’t as polished as others and felt a little like padding – he doesn’t attempt to overreach himself by trying to make a big life statement; the focus is on the day to day and he sticks to that. I thought the collection would have finished stronger with one of the longer pieces rather than two shorter ones, but this didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment and I thought it was, on the whole, a well-rounded collection.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

When There's Nowhere Else to Run, a sweeping collection of short stories by Murray Middleton, was the third book reviewed with The Promise Seed in the Sydney Review of Books late last year, and it won the Vogel Literary Award. The beauty of a short story collection is that you can dip into it at will, reading as much or as little as you like. Middleton presents us with a diverse range of stories, all set in Australia, from the horrors of Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires, to Perth, to the Sydney Royal Easter Show, to the tropics of Queensland. We are introduced to a wide variety of characters, too - a group of young people caring for their dying friend; single parents coping on their own; a hit-and-run driver wrestling with his conscience; a man driving his sister to a rehab clinic. Some of the stories work better than others, and in some we become much more invested in the fates of the protagonists. I did find my interest waning at times, but perhaps that was more because I would just start getting into a character/plot and then the story would be over and I'd be on to the next one!
Middleton is a very astute observer of human behaviour and interactions and this collection is testament to people whose lives are unravelling, whether through fear or lonliness, through misjudgments or selfishness, or through grief or cruelty. The tales span generations, genders, ages, circumstances and geography. The ties are explored between parents and children, between siblings - both adult and children, between married couples, and between children and their aging parents. A recurrent theme running through this collection seems to be of hope - hope for something better or different, hope for redemption, hope for reconciliation, hope attached to the past, hope for the future. In some stories, hope is lost, forgotten, waylaid or trampled on, but it is still there, hovering in the background, like a hungry ghost.

[Glen Hunting · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt that the stories in this collection, while all being contemporary social-realist pieces, fell into three categories. In the first category, the stories didn't quite hit their mark, usually through a somewhat vague or weak ending. In the next category, the stories were competent, without any glaring faults, but still relatively unremarkable. In the third category, however, were five or six stories that I considered outstanding, with memorable characters and deep emotional significance. To avoid categorising the reading experience too much for those who are yet to sample this collection, I'll refrain from naming the stories I thought were the real 'goodies.' All of the pieces were narrated with clear, lucid prose, with no gratuitous verbosity and no syntactical snares that might otherwise surprise unwary readers.

On this basis, When There's Nowhere Else To Run should be viewed as a creditable debut. Middleton is young and, hopefully, has a lot more writing ahead of him. The variable quality of the individual pieces in his first full-length offering suggests that he is still honing his craft. But it is also clear that he is capable, at this early stage of his career, of producing exceptional work. After all, no-one wins a Vogel or an Age Short Story Award with being able to do that.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a great fan of short stories, but the premise of this similarly themed collection caught my attention. They are stories of everyday Australians feeling the emotions and stress of everyday life. The stories are very relateable, but like all short stories, they were ultimately unsatisfying. They all seemed to end without resolving anything. Short stories are an art form and should be read as such. I much prefer 300+ pages to be filled with a riveting story and well developed characters leading to an enthralling climax. Everyday stories about everyday people - I can find that anytime in Readers Digest.

[Renee W · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gem! I loved this collection of short stories. Whilst I initially found myself frustrated at the questions left unanswered at the end of a number of the stories, by the end I really felt that this added to the charm of each and left me wanting more. Even in the shortest of stories I felt a real connection to the characters which is due to Middleton's wonderfully descriptive writing style. I really look forward to reading more of Murray Middleton's work and hope there is a novel on the way!