Stations

by Nick Mulgrew

Slouching toward purgatory.

In fourteen rich and entangled stories, Nick Mulgrew’s debut work of fiction explores the sorrows and absurdities of youth, spirituality and prejudice in the verdant and history-stained settlements of South Africa’s coastline.

From drunken broken-family vacations to a postman’s jaunt into the weird world of the ultra-rich; from a housewife's visit to a library for the blind to a haunting descent into a colonial Purgatory, these stories exhibit a magpie’s eye for the smallest of tragedies and grandest of ironies. But, set on the stage of the everyday, Stations conjures not just a vision of a South Africa that implodes and resurrects itself as it wishes, but also of the people caught in its wake, their lives tottering desperately between happiness and eternal futility.

Contains various award-winning and almost-award-winning stories, including:

"Posman", shortlisted for the 2015 White Review Prize.
“Turning”, the winner of the 2014 National Arts Festival Short Sharp Stories Award.
“Ponta do Ouro”, longlisted for the Twenty in 20 Project.

186 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Nick Mulgrew is an award-winning writer, editor and publisher, currently based in Edinburgh. He is the author of six books, and since 2014 is the director of uHlanga, an acclaimed South African poetry press.

His novels include A Hibiscus Coast, winner of the 2022 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award. Among other accolades, he is the winner of the 2016 Thomas Pringle Award, the 2018 Nadine Gordimer Prize (for his story collection, The First Law of Sadness), and is the recipient of a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship.

Reviews

[Madri · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title of Nick Mulgrew's book suggest each short story should be read with The Stations of the Cross, a 14-step Catholic devotion that commemorates Jesus Christ's last day on Earth as a man, in mind. Each station is a mini pilgrimage, a meditation. In the first story, "Athlone Towers", the imploding of the towers becomes a strong symbol for the demise of a relationship. It is the act of condemnation, the first stop on "a slow road to purgatory". In the fourth story, "Ponta do Ourro", a mother and son spend a fraught Christmas holiday in Mozambique; with the corresponding station Jesus's encounter with his mother before his death. And so forth. It is done cleverly. But even on it's own, without any knowledge of the link to the Stations of the Cross, the stories in Stations speaks of Mulgrew's huge talent as a writer, his sensitivity and attention to detail. Stories like "Gala Day" haunted me for days. Stations calls for a meditative read.

[Tiah]

Interview with the author: http://shortstorydayafrica.org/news/i...

Quotes:
"Athlone Towers":
– I thought I could, I don't know, force myself to change. That I could write my own myths. –


"Turning":
– In my head I tried to place the shape of your moans on the IPA vowel chart. You started at unrounded back close-mid [o], then shifted to rounded back close-mid [ɣ] when you picked up the pace. Open central [ä] – ah, ah, ah. –

– How does one deserve this? How can one deserve the way everything was constructed, from dirt and ash and rock, all to place this person here with me? –

– It's hard to say what I felt. There was a storm outside like a storm in heaven, and the wind blew in Grahmstown like the wind in Grahmstown blows, and my building shook in the wind the way old buildings shake. It's hard to say what I felt, but it felt like it would have been better if you were in my bed to share that storm with me. –


"Daughter":
– This museum holds things, you said, that we shouldn't remember. –


"I-HR Foto":
– Soon the negatives would slither out. Soon he would know what she had given him to see. Until then, they, like all photographs, existed only in a Schrodinger's state; as exceptions. That was the beauty of photography: how at first the pictures only really existed in your mind. –


"Mariannhill, In the Garden":
– Will you take it upon yourself to sort through the parts of me, to piece me together again from these fragments of myself, from unfinished prayers, from miscellany? –


"Stations":
– Mother, wanderer: now I know what you know. We are our own shades. –

– Number your moments like beads. –

[Emma Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection to be a bit uneven. There are many of the stories I really enjoyed including Athlone Towers, Turning, Ponta do Ouro and Gala Day. Die Biblioteek vir Blindes was funny and all too realistic. However, I also felt there were several stories that fell short of what I was hoping for. That being said, I enjoy Nick Mulgrew's writing, and I will probably pick up whatever he writes next.

[Karina Szczurek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning debut collection. An artist of many talents. A writer to watch!