The Not-Dead and The Saved and Other Stories

by Kate Clanchy

None of us are perfect, in the way we love, age, or view the world. The Not-Dead and the Saved offers us an opportunity for reinvention: of ourselves, those we have lost, and the world in which we live. From a man doomed to spend his life trying to find solutions to cancer; to a new mother haunted by a swaddling, tablet-eating great-aunt; to an intrepid literary agent who travels to the Yorkshire Moors to discover the next big thing, and ends up eating Anne Bronte's rock cakes, we meet a host of characters who are desperately, creatively, and often hilariously trying to evade the underlying truths of their lives.

The Not-Dead and the Saved is a cascade, of warm, wise and insightful stories about human nature, frank, funny, and sometimes desolating, but always underpinned by tenderness, and by a faith in enduring bonds of love.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 2015

About the author

Kate Clanchy was educated in Edinburgh and Oxford University. She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Buckinghamshire where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer. Her poetry and seven radio plays have been broadcast by BBC Radio. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper; her work appeared in The Scotsman, the New Statesman and Poetry Review. She also writes for radio and broadcasts on the World Service and BBC Radio 3 and 4.

She is a Creative Writing Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and teaches Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation. She is currently one of the writers-in-residence at the charity First Story. Her poetry has been included in A Book of Scottish Verse (2002) and The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry (2006)

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of 16 short stories on the theme of 'what it means to be a mother or a child; to struggle alone; to seek comfort in love; to be present; to be sane'.
Whilst reading the collection, I was doubting my own sanity as many of the stories I could not make any sense of - is the person in the story talking to someone who exists or not?
Despite the fact that the title story of the collection won the BBC National Short Story award in 2009, my favourite story was actually 'This Problem Is For You' - the rest I found pretty incomprehensible and reading them was not enjoyable for me. Glad that I was able to finish them in a day and get onto something else! - 4/10.

[Abhishek Mishra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. The dialogue is good, the scene and mood, not so much. I tried to get used to the missing quotes and punctuation but I struggled till the last page. Overall, reading the collection felt more taxing than enjoyable.

[Gretel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of tender short stories. Clanchy's previous work as a poet has obviously helped and she has a beautiful command of words. Clanchy doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue, something that would usually bug me, but it mostly works. My favourite stories of the collection are:

Bride Hill: a daughter in denial of her father's Alzheimer's. Clancy writes about the condition with tenderness and I even learnt a little about what happens to the brain when Alzheimer's attacks.

The Invention of Scotland: English girl Ophelia is a newcomer to Fiona's school in Scotland. Brilliant and unusual characterisation, I especially liked how Fiona's plainness was a stark difference to Ophelia and her mother's peculiarities, and I thought that Fiona's sense of inadequacy was done really well. The ending is especially satisfying.

The Book Instead: Two young Indian girls have homework - to write about their view from the window, but they are soon distracted and want to write their own book. I thought the interaction of the girls was really sweet and in so few words Clanchy manages to perfectly portray the girls' sense of a dual identity; Indian and British.

This Problem is For You: Told in two different voices; bold 13 year old Ashleen and new immigrant and maths wonder Samuel, they talk about what brought them to the Unit. This story really packs a punch and the teenage voices are authentic and memorable.

The Show: Dale blows everybody away when he signs up for a televised singing competition. As he progresses through the competition and the country's eyes are focused on him, the press dives into his life and secrets start to come out. A very credible story.

Alas, the Tents Collapsed on the Green Field of the Mind: New second-time mother Laura relaxes her TV ban for some peace and quiet and recognises someone on a kids' programme - a former student at university. I liked the 'what if?' aspect and how seeing her former crush on TV makes her reconsider her life choices.

The Not-Dead and the Saved: Probably the most emotionally trying story of the bunch. A mother and son's struggle with the son's life-threatening illness through the years. I won't say any more, just read it and be punched in the gut.

Stories like Katherine Mansfield and The Shoes didn't hit the mark for me and felt like filler material, but overall this is a very strong collection.

[Thomas Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bride Hill: about a husband's dip into Alzheimer's and the wife's attempt to convince their daughter of the reality of his condition.

The Invention of Scotland: about a young girl's friendship with new arrivals; a mother and daughter. And the tension between them all. I found this one really powerful.

Animal, Vegetable: a sort of thought experiment for Mumsnet.

The Not-Dead and The Saved: this one was very good. I'd love to see it as a short film. Really gets you in the feels.

Tunnelling to Mother: packing up a home means unpacking at the same time.

I wasn't too impressed with this one to start with. The early ones didn't chime. But by the end the stories had resolved into really touching portraits of characters that rang true.

Sharp and concise. Raw is another good word that elsewhere is overused but here it really means that the stories rub down into the skin and then there's that little splash of vinegar to bring the tears.

[Kevin Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever weaving and crafting of short stories that resonated with me, told skilfully and poignantly.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kate Clanchy has deservedly achieved a lot of acclaim for her collection of powerful, if at times brutal, short story collection. Well versed as a poet, Clanchy manages to balance beautiful and poignant verse with familiar but dark subject matter.

She manages to touch upon familiar topics of parenthood, friendship, and bereavement with a personal and profound effect. The joy of reading a collection such as this is the discovery of what stories, themes, and characters hit a personal note for the reader. Somewhat inevitably, there are others in comparison that didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

I loved the writing style though and will definitely be looking out for Kate Clanchy’s other works.

[Ian Plenderleith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more I read, the more I enjoyed this collection. Some feel like early works - they're okay, but had a kind of 'creative writing course' feel about them, as though lots of tutors, and maybe agents and editors, had guided the writer through. (There's one story, Brunty Country, that's actually a satire on literary agents, but it doesn't quite work - too cartoonish and contrived.) The later stories, mostly set in the realm of motherhood, or not-motherhood, were more honest and more true. The title story, which won the BBC National Short Story Prize in 2009, and Animal, Vegetable, are both magnificent. Overall, though, and this might sound absurd, these short stories were just a bit too 'shortstoryish' for my liking.

[Ric Carter]

For reasons that must only be commercial, novels are expected to last around 250-300 pages and so short story collections seem to have to be about the same size, which is ridiculous and a shame because they should just be as long as they need to be.  And if this had been about 150 pages long it would have been perfect because there are that many fantastic pieces of writing here, but then there’s some that just aren’t as good and it distracts from the great stuff. The titular piece, which won the BBC National Short Story Award, is a poetic, intense, funny tale of life, illness and death, and stands out as a highlight.

[Matt Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

family, illness, motherhood, absent fathers, friendship, bereavement.

A really enjoyable collection, the prose was really nice and comfortable to read. Full of all the feels in places, weepy and deep.

[Chimene Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of these stories have motherhood as a theme, and those were my favorites, but I loved the whole collection, especially the title story.

[Claireapagado · Rating 5 out of 5]

A more accurate rating would be 4.5 as there were 2 stories I didn't enjoy. The rest were amazingly good- loved it!