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The Pre-War House and Other Stories
From the Man Booker shortlisted author of The Lighthouse comes this uncanny collection of short fiction about the unhomeliness of home: fractured families, domestic claustrophobia, and the unseen menace of the everyday. Alison Moore moves deftly from flash fictions to novella, from insightful realism to chilling gothic horror. With the same emotional tension and tightly controlled prose that garnered her first novel such accolades, Moore once again shines a light into the darkest corners of the human heart and stares unflinchingly at the horrors found there.
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 5, 2012
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140 people want to read
About the author
Alison Moore
94 books111 followers Born in Manchester in 1971, Alison Moore lives next but one to a sheep field in a village on the Leicestershire-Nottinghamshire border, with her husband Dan and son Arthur.
She is a member of Nottingham Writers’ Studio and an honorary lecturer in the School of English at Nottingham University.
In 2012 her novel The Lighthouse, the unsettling tale of a middle-aged man who embarks on a contemplative German walking holiday after the break-up of his marriage – only to find himself more alienated than ever, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.
She is a member of Nottingham Writers’ Studio and an honorary lecturer in the School of English at Nottingham University.
In 2012 her novel The Lighthouse, the unsettling tale of a middle-aged man who embarks on a contemplative German walking holiday after the break-up of his marriage – only to find himself more alienated than ever, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
November 8, 2016
Some people can dip in and out of short story collections over a long period of time, rationing them, so that each re-encounter with the author's themes and techniques feels fresh. I can't do this. I am too obsessive about needing to either complete or abandon books, and have too much of a need to catalogue everything I consume. The only exception might be a huge anthology with multiple authors; otherwise, when I start reading a book of short stories, I read the whole book, usually pretty quickly.
The problem with my approach, of course, is that ingesting so many stories so swiftly can make recurrent topics, moods and motifs seem overused and tedious. While not a huge tome, The Pre-War House is a comprehensive collection of Alison Moore's short fiction, containing 24 stories. Many of them are concerned with the banal inevitabilities of family life: husbands and wives becoming bored of one another, or cheating; parents not understanding their children, and children not understanding their parents; the sombre reality of reckoning with old age and quietly making it through grief. I found after a while that this litany of bleak domestic scenes was starting to become worn out, samey, making the stories seem to merge together, and some of them slipped out of my memory almost instantly.
Yet I love Moore's writing, and adored her brilliant novel Death and the Seaside; indeed, her grasp on the mundane, and the strangeness always lurking within it, was one of my favourite things about that book. But with so much of the same thing – and less space to establish characters, motivations or atmosphere – in The Pre-War House, I longed for a bit of macabre glee, something to give it a jump-start. I don't think I read this book in the right way, really, and it's made me think that next time I read a short story collection, I will take it more slowly and try to leave myself some room to digest each one before starting the next.
I did like the opening story, the arresting 'When the Door Closed, It Was Dark': it's tense, claustrophobic and horribly frustrating, putting you in the shoes of an au pair working for a taciturn but oppressive family. My two joint favourites were 'Overnight Stop', which sees a newlywed woman, en route to her honeymoon, trapped in a hotel with an acquaintance she's desperate to avoid, and 'Small Animals', about a couple of friends who call on a woman and her 'difficult' daughter and are drawn into a rather terrifying scene.
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The problem with my approach, of course, is that ingesting so many stories so swiftly can make recurrent topics, moods and motifs seem overused and tedious. While not a huge tome, The Pre-War House is a comprehensive collection of Alison Moore's short fiction, containing 24 stories. Many of them are concerned with the banal inevitabilities of family life: husbands and wives becoming bored of one another, or cheating; parents not understanding their children, and children not understanding their parents; the sombre reality of reckoning with old age and quietly making it through grief. I found after a while that this litany of bleak domestic scenes was starting to become worn out, samey, making the stories seem to merge together, and some of them slipped out of my memory almost instantly.
Yet I love Moore's writing, and adored her brilliant novel Death and the Seaside; indeed, her grasp on the mundane, and the strangeness always lurking within it, was one of my favourite things about that book. But with so much of the same thing – and less space to establish characters, motivations or atmosphere – in The Pre-War House, I longed for a bit of macabre glee, something to give it a jump-start. I don't think I read this book in the right way, really, and it's made me think that next time I read a short story collection, I will take it more slowly and try to leave myself some room to digest each one before starting the next.
I did like the opening story, the arresting 'When the Door Closed, It Was Dark': it's tense, claustrophobic and horribly frustrating, putting you in the shoes of an au pair working for a taciturn but oppressive family. My two joint favourites were 'Overnight Stop', which sees a newlywed woman, en route to her honeymoon, trapped in a hotel with an acquaintance she's desperate to avoid, and 'Small Animals', about a couple of friends who call on a woman and her 'difficult' daughter and are drawn into a rather terrifying scene.
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January 26, 2019
This collection of 24 short stories showcases Alison Moore's talent for writing understated yet atmospheric narratives with bleak undertones of foreboding on every page. Unlocked doors and empty rooms feature frequently with recurring themes of domestic tension and the yearning to escape the past.
Moore is especially skilled in crafting the perfect image to evoke the fragility and poignancy of life, as in this excerpt from the title story:
'In the front garden, in the narrow beds, the flowers which emerged in what felt like the first days of spring lie buried beneath the late snow, their opening buds like small mouths gaping in shock, their stems broken.'
Moore is especially skilled in crafting the perfect image to evoke the fragility and poignancy of life, as in this excerpt from the title story:
'In the front garden, in the narrow beds, the flowers which emerged in what felt like the first days of spring lie buried beneath the late snow, their opening buds like small mouths gaping in shock, their stems broken.'
February 9, 2015
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 6, 2013
After falling in love with The Lighthouse I had to get my hands on this.
I am really enjoying it.
I love how again the author does not use 1 word that is not needed.
When you finish a story you feel like you were gifted the whole, completely.
With nothing less and nothing more just added on for the sake of it.
You hold the core in your hands.
I love her twist and yet untwist endings :-)
I am so looking forward to more by this writer :-) !!!!
Finished the collection now: loved it :-) !
I am really enjoying it.
I love how again the author does not use 1 word that is not needed.
When you finish a story you feel like you were gifted the whole, completely.
With nothing less and nothing more just added on for the sake of it.
You hold the core in your hands.
I love her twist and yet untwist endings :-)
I am so looking forward to more by this writer :-) !!!!
Finished the collection now: loved it :-) !
March 4, 2014
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Tales from Man Booker-nominated author Alison Moore's debut collection of short stories, read by Ruth Gemmell.
Tales from Man Booker-nominated author Alison Moore's debut collection of short stories, read by Ruth Gemmell.
March 31, 2019
A great collection of stories! Each one was unsettling and some were slightly sinister. They left you feeling unsettled and disturbed. I loved it.
September 22, 2013
These days I read more short stories than I used to – but generally I prefer short stories written by that generation of women writers that wrote at a time when short stories were rather more fashionable. Dating from between the 1930’s and the 1960’s probably, writers like Elizabeth Taylor, Mollie Panter Downes and Dorothy Whipple are wonderful examples of the kind of short story writing I like. I often find modern short stories leave me a little cold, they sometimes try to be just a bit too clever, there’s almost always a twist that I can’t help but start looking for while still on the second paragraph, and they’re often so very short, they don’t even last the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
I read and loved Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse last year, and so I knew that I really wanted to read this collection when it came out. I was therefore delighted to win a copy of it from AlexinLeeds in her giveaway. This collection was put together with stories that had been previously published in various journals and anthologies, along with three stories that are original to this collection, and I assume written for it.
“Halfway up the iron staircase, she pauses. She stands still, her arms aching, nausea swelling in her stomach. She listens to the distant buzz of life, the sounds coming from the market and the factory – a noisy, windowless box of a building in which Uncle works on a production line. She had often wondered what it would be like to spend so much of your life like that, without daylight, without sunshine, without fresh air. “
The collection opens with the rather chilling, and very memorable “When the Door Closed, it was Dark,” about a young woman, working as an au pair in a foreign country, trapped and bullied by her employers who take her passport and her money. Many of the stories that follow have similarly dark themes. A newly wed setting off on her honeymoon, encounters a slimy manipulative man who knows her darkest secret, in the airport hotel following the delay of her flight. Secrets between a father and his daughter, and between her and her mother punctuate a family’s history, a devoted husband rummages in the kitchen drawer of his dying wife, unearthing, old recipes, and ancient letters. In one of my favourite stories “Small Animals” a woman takes her psychologist friend to visit a woman, whose young daughter may have been displaying some odd behaviour. The final story – The Pre-War House – the longest in the collection – was another one I particularly liked, telling the dark story of a family and their house.
“’This house was brand new’ said my Grandmother, ‘When I was a child, in the 1930’s, before the war. ‘The garden was nothing but mud from one end to the other. My father laid the brick path down to the end wall, marked out the vegetable patch, and grassed the rest of it over’
Little about the house had been changed since then. We were sitting on the same pre-war three-piece suite, with pre-war family photographs arranged on the pre-war furniture and pre-war pictures hanging on the high walls. Pre-war curtains kept the sunlight off the pre-war wallpaper and the pre-war carpets, and pre-war clock ticked in the hallway.”
There is dark psychological bent to these stories, happy endings – having read The Lighthouse I was unsurprised to find – are not something to expect from Alison Moore . Themes of people trapped, betrayed, keeping secrets and suffering loss are deftly explored. Moore writing is beautifully spare – not a word wasted, she is a gifted writer, with a wonderful eye for detail. One or two stories were rather too short for my liking and I did find that Alison Moore does do that twist thing in her short stories; it’s certainly not something I dislike necessarily, though the reader can start to anticipate how things might pan out. Over on Goodreads I gave this book three stars – that always looks bad – but I don’t think it is, and for me this collection was more of a three and a half stars anyway – just not quite four. I’m looking forward already to Alison Moore’s next book – I sort of hope it’s a novel though.
I read and loved Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse last year, and so I knew that I really wanted to read this collection when it came out. I was therefore delighted to win a copy of it from AlexinLeeds in her giveaway. This collection was put together with stories that had been previously published in various journals and anthologies, along with three stories that are original to this collection, and I assume written for it.
“Halfway up the iron staircase, she pauses. She stands still, her arms aching, nausea swelling in her stomach. She listens to the distant buzz of life, the sounds coming from the market and the factory – a noisy, windowless box of a building in which Uncle works on a production line. She had often wondered what it would be like to spend so much of your life like that, without daylight, without sunshine, without fresh air. “
The collection opens with the rather chilling, and very memorable “When the Door Closed, it was Dark,” about a young woman, working as an au pair in a foreign country, trapped and bullied by her employers who take her passport and her money. Many of the stories that follow have similarly dark themes. A newly wed setting off on her honeymoon, encounters a slimy manipulative man who knows her darkest secret, in the airport hotel following the delay of her flight. Secrets between a father and his daughter, and between her and her mother punctuate a family’s history, a devoted husband rummages in the kitchen drawer of his dying wife, unearthing, old recipes, and ancient letters. In one of my favourite stories “Small Animals” a woman takes her psychologist friend to visit a woman, whose young daughter may have been displaying some odd behaviour. The final story – The Pre-War House – the longest in the collection – was another one I particularly liked, telling the dark story of a family and their house.
“’This house was brand new’ said my Grandmother, ‘When I was a child, in the 1930’s, before the war. ‘The garden was nothing but mud from one end to the other. My father laid the brick path down to the end wall, marked out the vegetable patch, and grassed the rest of it over’
Little about the house had been changed since then. We were sitting on the same pre-war three-piece suite, with pre-war family photographs arranged on the pre-war furniture and pre-war pictures hanging on the high walls. Pre-war curtains kept the sunlight off the pre-war wallpaper and the pre-war carpets, and pre-war clock ticked in the hallway.”
There is dark psychological bent to these stories, happy endings – having read The Lighthouse I was unsurprised to find – are not something to expect from Alison Moore . Themes of people trapped, betrayed, keeping secrets and suffering loss are deftly explored. Moore writing is beautifully spare – not a word wasted, she is a gifted writer, with a wonderful eye for detail. One or two stories were rather too short for my liking and I did find that Alison Moore does do that twist thing in her short stories; it’s certainly not something I dislike necessarily, though the reader can start to anticipate how things might pan out. Over on Goodreads I gave this book three stars – that always looks bad – but I don’t think it is, and for me this collection was more of a three and a half stars anyway – just not quite four. I’m looking forward already to Alison Moore’s next book – I sort of hope it’s a novel though.
March 5, 2017
Most of the stories ended ugly and abruptly and were filled with grief or horror or both. None of these will make you feel good, which is ok.
July 13, 2014
This is a great debut collection from Alison Moore and it is easily understood why many have been shortlisted for different awards. They are thought provoking for the reader with conclusions not always crystal clear, but, left to the reader to draw from the well described inferences provided. Cleverly compiled and many dealing with the trials and tribulations of growing up and from a feminine perspective. These are written by an author who has been "around the block" and lived a bit! I would find it worrying if they are all from her personal experience, if not a bit harrowing. Well written. Concise. Modern themes from modern day-to-day life. Insightful, enjoyable. Highly recommended. A talented author. I must get "The Lighthouse", her highly rated novel, next.
Other professional reviews:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/pr...
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013...
http://fcmalby.wordpress.com/2013/05/...
Other professional reviews:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/pr...
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013...
http://fcmalby.wordpress.com/2013/05/...
December 2, 2016
A badly mixed selection. Whereas the titular story and others like "Jetsam" and "Helicopter Jean" are beyond amazing and could be classed as definitive examples of how a short story should be written, there are others here which are more mediocre or even, in a couple of cases, below par, plus some ho-hum genre stories which really don't belong in this collection. Most of the material here has been previously published in magazines, and it should have been left that way until the author had enough of her, frankly, stunning material available to make the collection she should have published. I'm being a bit harsh here, I know, but it's galling to see such genius work being diluted with pot-boiler stories.
July 11, 2022
This may be my favourite short story collection of all time, pop-pickers!
It's incredible
Small Animals is certainly my fave story.
I love the miserablist aesthetic. The gloomy, down-beat, mundane vibe that resonates with my own gloomy, down-beat, mundane life.
Generally I found myself preferring the stories that lacked any drama (Small Animals is an exception) The stories have a sinister feeling. The world Alison Moore creates is dangerous like a fairy-tale forest, but mainly it's impossibly sad. Interestingly, the author she reminded me of most is Angela Carter, and yet I can't really think why that is.
I will be consuming her other books in quick succession
Yum yum!
It's incredible
Small Animals is certainly my fave story.
I love the miserablist aesthetic. The gloomy, down-beat, mundane vibe that resonates with my own gloomy, down-beat, mundane life.
Generally I found myself preferring the stories that lacked any drama (Small Animals is an exception) The stories have a sinister feeling. The world Alison Moore creates is dangerous like a fairy-tale forest, but mainly it's impossibly sad. Interestingly, the author she reminded me of most is Angela Carter, and yet I can't really think why that is.
I will be consuming her other books in quick succession
Yum yum!
November 15, 2015
Alison Moore goes from strength-to-strength. But these stories are as assured as 'The Lighthouse' or 'He wants'. This author also clearly enjoys engaging with her readership. Well crafted stories! I look forward to a third novel.
August 5, 2021
Very interesting short stories. The final story, the Pre=War House, was outstanding.
I have read three books by this author and find her work to be very good.
I have read three books by this author and find her work to be very good.
January 12, 2022
I have read all Alison Moore's novels and I think she writes incredibly well. I first read these short stories several years ago, so this was the second time I've read them. All the stories are a bit bleak and although they are all different insofar as characters and plots and settings are different, the tone is pretty similar. I wouldn't recommend this collection - but I'd be really interested to see a new collection of short stories from a writer I admire.
May 16, 2023
I read four stories from this collection, opting out at this stage. The opening tale is harrowing and deeply atmospheric, I was impressed. “Small Animals” is impressive as well, but the other two were too brief and twist-focused. It didn’t help that I had just read Joyce Carol Oates masterpiece “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” which leaves all others in the dust and by comparison showed Moore’s work to be made of thinner material.
October 29, 2020
Very bleak. I agree with other reviewers it is a lot to take in at once and it could become a bit of a slog, especially when your own emotional state is a little fragile. However I was drawn in to the stories and characters as though I was there and feel Moore captures the mundanity, the secrets and sometimes painful reality of everyday life.
March 18, 2018
This is a mixed bag, with both engrossing, suspenseful wonderfully written stories and others which aren’t as captivating or well-written. Overall, I still enjoyed many of the stories and would recommend them to anyone who has read Moore’s other novels.
November 7, 2019
I've read all of Alison Moore's novels and have really enjoyed them so I wondered what her short stories would be like, and I liked some more than others and was going to give it 3 stars overall but The Pre-War House changed my decision as it was really good so 4 stars it is.
July 23, 2025
It's a while since I read anything of Alison Moore and this selection has rekindled memories of what constitutes reading enjoyment for me.
I don't require happy conclusions, nor all ends tied...just brilliant writing and a story that stays with you.
She ticks all the boxes as far as I am concerned.
I don't require happy conclusions, nor all ends tied...just brilliant writing and a story that stays with you.
She ticks all the boxes as far as I am concerned.
August 6, 2018
Well written short stories but I kept thinking this should have been titled Bleak House, every story is a downer in one way or another. Good in small doses.
October 9, 2018
Entertaining with something darker underneath
A mixture of unpredictable tales with dark under tones. I very much enjoyed them all. They were also very well written.
A mixture of unpredictable tales with dark under tones. I very much enjoyed them all. They were also very well written.
October 22, 2018
These range from weird to disturbing and end with just plain sad yet I couldn’t stop reading.
September 19, 2019
This collection reminded me that stories can feel both loud and quiet at once.
October 11, 2025
Loved this collection.
January 5, 2016
Stories of length 3 to 50 pages (263 pages in total), several from "The New Writer", and some from "Ambit", "The Warwick Review" and many anthologies.
I've read "When the door closed, it was dark" somewhere before. I like it, except that I found the ending too open. It has a rare instance of imagery - "the iron staircase which zigzagged up the front of the building like the teeth of her mother's pinking shears or a child's drawing of lightning". I liked "The Egg" - early on we learn of the main character that "In the bathroom, his wet footprints are already evaporating from the tiled floor". I liked "The Machines", especially the ending, though in a story about noise, is "far cry" in "It is a far cry from the peace of her childhood home" supposed to be so punny? The punchline of "Static" makes it into a good story. I'm impressed by "Sometimes you think you are alone", the title suiting a story in the 2nd person where the 1st person makes a decisive appearance.
In the title story/novella the narrator's spending her last night in the family home, alone, before workmen come to empty it out. Leit-motifs are relentlessly repeated. The barberry bush is symbolic, more than at first thought. I wondered how the narrator learnt about the circumstances relating to it on p.261-2. The grandmother perhaps. The treatment might come over as heavy-handed, or as poetic. I think it's over-larded in places but by and large I liked it.
I like the handling of the episodic style of "Nurture" but not so much its ending. "Jetsam" had good passages - e.g. on p.90. "A Small Window" is ok. "Helicopter Jane" and "Trees in the Tarmac" shuffle by now standard components.
A few stories didn't work for me - "Glory Hole" (because of the ending), "Humming and Pinging" (ending too closed), "Seclusion", "Sleeping Under the Stars", "Monsoon Puddles" (because of the ending), "It Has Happened Before", "The Yacht Man", "The Smell of the Slaughterhouse" and "Small animals". "Wink wink" rather overdoes the theme, as do "If there's anything left" and "Late" (the latter having too obvious an ending).
The style's very show-not-tell, so it was a surprise to see "The boy was impressed" in "The Egg". Even when there's a first-person narrator there's little introspection or self-analysis (sometimes justified by the narrator's youth). If the main character's female, there's often a man distanced by language problems or cultural/generational differences. There's frequent scraping, parents' houses, the aftermath of a parent's death, women recently separated, men living alone - absence in general. There are several stories where a theme (noise, running, etc) is highlighted, and the psychological problem is sneaked in around a page or so - e.g. "While you run, you listen to music, always the same C60 tape, a compilation your boyfriend made for you, before he left you", p.147. I think "climbs slowly down the stairs" (p.136) is correct usage, though climbing down rather than up sounds strange.
Together, the stories somewhat weaken each other. That said, half a dozen of them are excellent.
I've read "When the door closed, it was dark" somewhere before. I like it, except that I found the ending too open. It has a rare instance of imagery - "the iron staircase which zigzagged up the front of the building like the teeth of her mother's pinking shears or a child's drawing of lightning". I liked "The Egg" - early on we learn of the main character that "In the bathroom, his wet footprints are already evaporating from the tiled floor". I liked "The Machines", especially the ending, though in a story about noise, is "far cry" in "It is a far cry from the peace of her childhood home" supposed to be so punny? The punchline of "Static" makes it into a good story. I'm impressed by "Sometimes you think you are alone", the title suiting a story in the 2nd person where the 1st person makes a decisive appearance.
In the title story/novella the narrator's spending her last night in the family home, alone, before workmen come to empty it out. Leit-motifs are relentlessly repeated. The barberry bush is symbolic, more than at first thought. I wondered how the narrator learnt about the circumstances relating to it on p.261-2. The grandmother perhaps. The treatment might come over as heavy-handed, or as poetic. I think it's over-larded in places but by and large I liked it.
I like the handling of the episodic style of "Nurture" but not so much its ending. "Jetsam" had good passages - e.g. on p.90. "A Small Window" is ok. "Helicopter Jane" and "Trees in the Tarmac" shuffle by now standard components.
A few stories didn't work for me - "Glory Hole" (because of the ending), "Humming and Pinging" (ending too closed), "Seclusion", "Sleeping Under the Stars", "Monsoon Puddles" (because of the ending), "It Has Happened Before", "The Yacht Man", "The Smell of the Slaughterhouse" and "Small animals". "Wink wink" rather overdoes the theme, as do "If there's anything left" and "Late" (the latter having too obvious an ending).
The style's very show-not-tell, so it was a surprise to see "The boy was impressed" in "The Egg". Even when there's a first-person narrator there's little introspection or self-analysis (sometimes justified by the narrator's youth). If the main character's female, there's often a man distanced by language problems or cultural/generational differences. There's frequent scraping, parents' houses, the aftermath of a parent's death, women recently separated, men living alone - absence in general. There are several stories where a theme (noise, running, etc) is highlighted, and the psychological problem is sneaked in around a page or so - e.g. "While you run, you listen to music, always the same C60 tape, a compilation your boyfriend made for you, before he left you", p.147. I think "climbs slowly down the stairs" (p.136) is correct usage, though climbing down rather than up sounds strange.
Together, the stories somewhat weaken each other. That said, half a dozen of them are excellent.
January 15, 2017
A short story collection probably best not read continuously where the half-strangled lives, the subtly voiced creepiness does not form one bleak, dreary, beautifully observed heap. Repeated themes (bulbs in the lawn as intrusions) would not be so obviously so. The depictions, superb as they are, would seem less gratuitously left to hang miserably. Somehow, whilst it is quite alright (in my eyes) for a short story or novella to be relentlessly suffocating, it does not seem as appropriate to pile a whole series of monotonal stories into one collection.
So I found myself respecting the quality of the writing but not the judgment.
So I found myself respecting the quality of the writing but not the judgment.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews