Stray thoughts and nose bleeds

by Duncan Sarkies

118 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short fiction from a New Zealand playwrite/screenwriter. Most of these pieces experiment with form in some way and several are told from the point of view of obsessive/compulsive neurotics. The writing is fresh, weirdly slanted, although it doesn’t seem to strive towards making a point. The novella “18 Acts of Love and Compassion” is the strongest piece and has an interesting form: each section has a different narrator, but it is a character from the previous section, with the last one coming full circle. This novella has some great scenes and it wouldn’t surprise me, given the author’s background, if it turned up as a movie.

[Malcolm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm, not sure what to make of this. Most of it, except for the long short story at the end, read like performance pieces gone a little wrong – which I suspect was the point, well, the performance pieces part anyway. All in all, rather droll, a little surreal, and here certainly seems to have a knack for getting inside the ironies and paradoxes of the now.

[Leonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirky and hilarious. Loved this book.

[Georgia Seitanidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lovely gift that captured Dunedin 90s grunge