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The Cartography of Others
A Japanese soprano sets sail for arid, haunted Corsica where she seeks her lost voice. A nude woman at the window of a Hong Kong hotel watches her lover dine in an adjacent building, but is her desire faltering? With a young son and her photographer partner, a journalist traverses Mali to interview an irascible musician. A son relives his mother’s last hours before a hiking accident in the Italian Dolomites, while in London a grieving family takes in an ex-soldier from the Balkan wars, unaware of the man’s demons.
The Cartography Of Others takes us from fumy Accra to suburban Sydney, from scruffy Paris to pre-fundamentalist Mali. Each bewitchingly recounted story conveys a location as vital as the fitful, contemplative characters themselves. Lives are mapped, unpicked, and crafted across vivid, lingering terrains.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
245 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 29, 2018
18 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Catherine McNamara
6 books22 followersCatherine McNamara grew up in Sydney, ran away to Paris, and ended up in West Africa running a bar. She was an embassy secretary in pre-war Mogadishu, and has worked as an au pair, graphic designer, translator and shoe model. Catherine's short fiction collection The Carnal Fugues was published in October 2023 by Puncher and Wattmann, Australia. The Carnal Fugues is a compilation of award-winning stories from her three collections - Love Stories for Hectic People, flash fiction published by Reflex Press (Best Short Story Collection, Saboteur Awards 2021), The Cartography of Others, published in 2018 with Unbound UK (finalist in the People's Book Prize UK, winner of the Eyelands International Fiction Prize, Greece), Pelt and Other Stories, published by Indigo Dreams in 2013 (semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize USA). Catherine's stories have been praised by Hilary Mantel, Chika Unigwe, Cathy Galvin, Tom Vowler, and shortlisted in the Royal Academy/Pin Drop Award, the Hilary Mantel/KWS Short Story Competition, the Willesden Herald Internation Short Story Competition, Short Fiction Journal and others. Her stories have been Pushcart-nominated and published in the U.K., Europe, U.S.A. and Australia, and speak of the sensual boundaries between people, and the alluring otherness of place. Catherine lives in Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
September 18, 2018
The author has lived in many places and these places provide the backdrop to her various stories on relationships. The narrators could be male or female, old or young, married or single. Their various voices show this is a talented writer but the constant fixation in the stories of characters having/wanting/needing sex was a bit tiresome.
August 23, 2021
McNamara is a wonderful writer - getting people and place down on the page with effortless nuance. But, I struggled with the lack of narrative drive in any of these short stories. I don't want things tied up at the end of a story, but I think I'm looking for some change, some link with the beginning, some reason for why this story in this place and time, and McNamara's don't provide any of that. It's presumably deliberate, but it meant that none of them gave me that little breath of satisfaction that I love getting from a short story that closes something by its end.
December 4, 2018
McNamara does some really wonderful things with this short story collection. As a writer the one that I am most envious of is her ability to find the right slice of time within which to tell the story. Her opening lines that hook the reader are something else to envy- like this one from the story Bamboo Furnace: 'He was sent back with tropical bug eating through the flesh of his leg', or this one from Enfolded: 'For a time she called him Julio. It wasn't his real name.'
This collection takes us from the deck of a charter yacht, to a heat choking African city, to a hike on the mountain, to Paris, to a family villa. The characters that inhabit these spaces are real and vivid. McNamara is a wonderful story teller and if you love short stories then this a must to add to your collection.
This collection takes us from the deck of a charter yacht, to a heat choking African city, to a hike on the mountain, to Paris, to a family villa. The characters that inhabit these spaces are real and vivid. McNamara is a wonderful story teller and if you love short stories then this a must to add to your collection.
June 11, 2018
Short stories set around the world
The Cartography of Others – a quite brilliant collection of short stories by Catherine McNamara.
The author is an Australian writer who has lived in Sydney, Paris, Mogadishu (before the unrest and violence), Ghana, and Italy. The variety of the locations in which she has lived (or has visited) comes through loud and clear in the settings for her stories.
The stories are short, but anything but simple. They are beautifully written and very sensual. And, in most, there is an unsettling element of uncertainly. The characters are complex but well developed in few brief pages. They tend not to be at home in the locations in which they find themselves. A Japanese soprano recovering her lost voice on Corsica close to where a saint was once crucified… The mourning rites in an advertising agency in Ghana when one of the employees dies… A Ukrainian girl seducing the husband of a pregnant woman at a barbeque party… An English woman waiting (in vain) for her Chinese lover in a luxury hotel in Hong Kong… Domestic violence, a coming together of two people, and a beating in Paris… Murder in Sydney and the story of a young man, a yoga enthusiast, and a Chinese girl protected from the world by her family… I could go on (still fourteen stories to go…!), but I hope I have shown the breadth of subject matter and locations in Catherine’s work. Yet, perhaps seemingly a little oddly, they are all very clearly from the same pen… The style throughout the book is entirely consistent.
Catherine has received much critical acclaim. Annemarie Neary, the Irish short story writer, has written of The Cartography of Others… ‘A master of mood and atmosphere, Catherine McNamara has a keen eye for the startling image that so often holds the heart of a story – a blue tent the morning after a party, a naked woman spreading herself across a window high above Hong Kong. Her theme is desire – its ambiguities, betrayals, bruises, and joys – and this is fearless, sensuous writing. Her prose is meticulous, the stories is meticulous, the stories rich with insight and empathy. Highly recommended.’
TripFiction does not often quote other reviewers, but this seems an exception well worth making.
The Cartography of Others – a quite brilliant collection of short stories by Catherine McNamara.
The author is an Australian writer who has lived in Sydney, Paris, Mogadishu (before the unrest and violence), Ghana, and Italy. The variety of the locations in which she has lived (or has visited) comes through loud and clear in the settings for her stories.
The stories are short, but anything but simple. They are beautifully written and very sensual. And, in most, there is an unsettling element of uncertainly. The characters are complex but well developed in few brief pages. They tend not to be at home in the locations in which they find themselves. A Japanese soprano recovering her lost voice on Corsica close to where a saint was once crucified… The mourning rites in an advertising agency in Ghana when one of the employees dies… A Ukrainian girl seducing the husband of a pregnant woman at a barbeque party… An English woman waiting (in vain) for her Chinese lover in a luxury hotel in Hong Kong… Domestic violence, a coming together of two people, and a beating in Paris… Murder in Sydney and the story of a young man, a yoga enthusiast, and a Chinese girl protected from the world by her family… I could go on (still fourteen stories to go…!), but I hope I have shown the breadth of subject matter and locations in Catherine’s work. Yet, perhaps seemingly a little oddly, they are all very clearly from the same pen… The style throughout the book is entirely consistent.
Catherine has received much critical acclaim. Annemarie Neary, the Irish short story writer, has written of The Cartography of Others… ‘A master of mood and atmosphere, Catherine McNamara has a keen eye for the startling image that so often holds the heart of a story – a blue tent the morning after a party, a naked woman spreading herself across a window high above Hong Kong. Her theme is desire – its ambiguities, betrayals, bruises, and joys – and this is fearless, sensuous writing. Her prose is meticulous, the stories is meticulous, the stories rich with insight and empathy. Highly recommended.’
TripFiction does not often quote other reviewers, but this seems an exception well worth making.
July 31, 2018
Beautifully written, sensuous short stories with a fantastic sense of place. They're clearly based on McNamara's own travels and experiences, and set in London, Italy, Hong Kong, Mali...Although they're all evocative and clearly conjure up the atmosphere of the place, the stories set in Africa were the most vivid for me...perhaps because I've never been there? Some of the stories had an almost photographic quality - certain images, like the garden at the end of "The Bamboo Furnace", stuck with me.
Occasionally I found myself wanting more of a defined plot - the traditional beginning, middle, end, rather than what felt like a scene or a snapshot - but I think that's more about my tastes than an issue with the stories. The most effective stories for me were "Three Days in Hong Kong" (a woman waits for her lover in a hotel), "The Kingdom of Fassa" (a man returns to the scene of his mother's fatal accident in the Dolomites) and "The Cliffs of Bandiagara" (a journalist and her lover, a photographer, travel across Mali to interview a musician).
I read most of the book at the airport/on the plane, and it's perfect for dipping in and out of while travelling.
Occasionally I found myself wanting more of a defined plot - the traditional beginning, middle, end, rather than what felt like a scene or a snapshot - but I think that's more about my tastes than an issue with the stories. The most effective stories for me were "Three Days in Hong Kong" (a woman waits for her lover in a hotel), "The Kingdom of Fassa" (a man returns to the scene of his mother's fatal accident in the Dolomites) and "The Cliffs of Bandiagara" (a journalist and her lover, a photographer, travel across Mali to interview a musician).
I read most of the book at the airport/on the plane, and it's perfect for dipping in and out of while travelling.
October 26, 2018
Some of the stories were arresting and poignant but most left me unmoved and I didn’t connect with the characters.
July 10, 2018
Probably very well written and clearly some love it....but really not my thing :/ ?
February 1, 2020
A mixed collection of short stories, many set on the African sub-continent. Some interesting characters and themes but some had strange endings or no particular ending at all! Overall impression not helped by some very poor editing - regularly pairs of words were runtogether (like that!) and capitals missing on names and after full stops - really annoying!! 5.5/10.
October 4, 2019
The prizewinning Catherine McNamara is a real talent: her writing is elegant, pithy and startling by turns. With a style reminiscent of Alice Munro’s, her imagination ranges from the shenanigans at a South African advertising agency to the reflections of a Hong Kong-based prostitute to what happens when a journalist travels to Mali in order to interview a famous musician. Her observations are acute, and there is never an unnecessary word: despite the beauty of the prose, this is pared-down, bare bones writing.
Here’s a sample:
I remembered Tai’s small face in and out of the water, its fierceness compared to the other swimmers. She had the propulsion and the slinkiness of a rodent and when she climbed out her skin shone. I watched her shiver with the other girls, all hiding their brazen new chests.
In a particularly moving story, an elderly, recently paralyzed, documentary filmmaker invites an old flame to Barbados (the different settings here are masterfully evoked, just a few brushstrokes). The ending gives the flavor:
She will haul his knees behind her knees and her feet will enclose his dormant feet. Later, she will trace the rim around his body, the fault line, the front. She will bring her wet cheek to the neat laceration on his spine.
It begins to rain. They both watch the morning shower, a clean curtain.
Possibly most memorable of all is the story of the father and son who trek up in the Dolomites to remember the woman they both lost in a mountaineering accident (and yes, there is a twist, though there isn’t always).
Other contenders for my personal favourites include the tale of a toddler disappearing into snowy woods while on holiday in the Alps. (This is seen from view of grandfather who should have been watching the child, and whose long marriage teeters in the balance). There’s also a wittily-written yet poignant story about a London-based niece arriving in Ghana to lend her aunt her eggs for IVF – and a stunningly well-written piece when, in India, a young man is knocked off his bicycle.
Really, I was absolutely blown away by McNamara’s provocative insight, deft craftmanship and understated prose. I could not recommend this book more highly.
Here’s a sample:
I remembered Tai’s small face in and out of the water, its fierceness compared to the other swimmers. She had the propulsion and the slinkiness of a rodent and when she climbed out her skin shone. I watched her shiver with the other girls, all hiding their brazen new chests.
In a particularly moving story, an elderly, recently paralyzed, documentary filmmaker invites an old flame to Barbados (the different settings here are masterfully evoked, just a few brushstrokes). The ending gives the flavor:
She will haul his knees behind her knees and her feet will enclose his dormant feet. Later, she will trace the rim around his body, the fault line, the front. She will bring her wet cheek to the neat laceration on his spine.
It begins to rain. They both watch the morning shower, a clean curtain.
Possibly most memorable of all is the story of the father and son who trek up in the Dolomites to remember the woman they both lost in a mountaineering accident (and yes, there is a twist, though there isn’t always).
Other contenders for my personal favourites include the tale of a toddler disappearing into snowy woods while on holiday in the Alps. (This is seen from view of grandfather who should have been watching the child, and whose long marriage teeters in the balance). There’s also a wittily-written yet poignant story about a London-based niece arriving in Ghana to lend her aunt her eggs for IVF – and a stunningly well-written piece when, in India, a young man is knocked off his bicycle.
Really, I was absolutely blown away by McNamara’s provocative insight, deft craftmanship and understated prose. I could not recommend this book more highly.
August 13, 2018
The Cartography of Others by Catherine McNamara (Unbound) is a collection of 20 short stories, which together map the complexities that link men and women. These are beautifully constructed stories, the language lyrical and poetic yet still authentic and real. Many of these stories felt like the beginning of longer pieces, you could believe in the characters, see their lives continuing far beyond the story’s conclusion. I wanted most of them to be longer, to carry on reading and learn more about the people who populated McNamara’s intricate worlds. The voices are varied, both male and female narrators share their moments, and the settings stretch from Japan to Paris, Mali and Spain, Sydney to a boat cruise round Corsica. Each place is exquisitely drawn and always integral to the atmosphere and mood of the story. McNamara often focuses in on a couple’s relationship at the moment where everything is about to change. The passion and pain of love beginning, or ending, is in these stories. Sexual tension, aggression, along with obsession and unrequited longing are here and the emotions are achingly real.
My personal favourite is ‘Adieu, Mon Doux Rivage’ where a Belgian music manager and his Japanese soprano wife have booked a week-long cruise around Corsica. Their relationship is brought into taut comparison with that of the couple managing the boat. There is also humour here as the cook’s ambition is to see the soprano’s hidden toes. The soprano is delicate and nervous, her voice apparently damaged and degrading. The interplay between the four characters in this story was breathtaking, their complexities and neuroses written with a poignant understanding of humanity. It would make a glorious film. I wanted more of these characters – the cost of the collection is worth it simply for this story, and then you have 19 bonus stories to enjoy.
I envy anyone reading this collection for the first time – they have a wonderful experience ahead of them.
My personal favourite is ‘Adieu, Mon Doux Rivage’ where a Belgian music manager and his Japanese soprano wife have booked a week-long cruise around Corsica. Their relationship is brought into taut comparison with that of the couple managing the boat. There is also humour here as the cook’s ambition is to see the soprano’s hidden toes. The soprano is delicate and nervous, her voice apparently damaged and degrading. The interplay between the four characters in this story was breathtaking, their complexities and neuroses written with a poignant understanding of humanity. It would make a glorious film. I wanted more of these characters – the cost of the collection is worth it simply for this story, and then you have 19 bonus stories to enjoy.
I envy anyone reading this collection for the first time – they have a wonderful experience ahead of them.
December 2, 2018
The Cartography of Others
by Catherine McNamara
Published by Unbound
Available in paperback and ebook
Catherine McNamara's latest short story collection, The Cartography of Others, not only has a lovely cover but the twenty stories contained inside are an exploration of displacement and estrangement.
Across the stories, we see characters who are on the verge of turning point in their lives. A woman waits in a hotel room for her married love to turn up, absorbing his excuses each time he calls, letting his flakiness knock her confidence. A son is trekking across a hill thinking about this mother's last few moments before she died. A soprano, on a boat, searching for her voice.
All these characters are looking for meaning, searching their past, hoping to find a sigh that will lead them towards their future. Catherine gives glimpses into their inner lives letting the reader see a character, who on the outside appears to be confident, has a great life but are crumbling inside, full of fear of the future.
Full of glamorous locations, vivid in detail, stretching from Sydney's suburbs, Accra, Paris across to Mali. Catherine takes the reader on a tour around the world, giving such precise details that the reader feels like they are actually there with the character, pulling the reader into the snapshot of these characters' lives.
The Cartography of Others delves confidently into the complexities of modern life, delve into people's concerns and fears of change. You can buy The Cartography of Others from your favourite bookshop.
*
I was sent a copy via the author.
*
You can read more of my book reviews over at http://writerslittlehelper.blogspot.com
by Catherine McNamara
Published by Unbound
Available in paperback and ebook
Catherine McNamara's latest short story collection, The Cartography of Others, not only has a lovely cover but the twenty stories contained inside are an exploration of displacement and estrangement.
Across the stories, we see characters who are on the verge of turning point in their lives. A woman waits in a hotel room for her married love to turn up, absorbing his excuses each time he calls, letting his flakiness knock her confidence. A son is trekking across a hill thinking about this mother's last few moments before she died. A soprano, on a boat, searching for her voice.
All these characters are looking for meaning, searching their past, hoping to find a sigh that will lead them towards their future. Catherine gives glimpses into their inner lives letting the reader see a character, who on the outside appears to be confident, has a great life but are crumbling inside, full of fear of the future.
Full of glamorous locations, vivid in detail, stretching from Sydney's suburbs, Accra, Paris across to Mali. Catherine takes the reader on a tour around the world, giving such precise details that the reader feels like they are actually there with the character, pulling the reader into the snapshot of these characters' lives.
The Cartography of Others delves confidently into the complexities of modern life, delve into people's concerns and fears of change. You can buy The Cartography of Others from your favourite bookshop.
*
I was sent a copy via the author.
*
You can read more of my book reviews over at http://writerslittlehelper.blogspot.com
February 21, 2019
This collection of short stories was a pleasure to read. I read it on a social reading platform called The Pigeonhole, where the book is split into parts released one a day. This concept was especially well suited for short stories like these. Throughout the reading experience I had the feeling of being given a bag of sweets one sweet at a time, each wrapped in the most beautiful paper and affording me exquisit and delightful tastes of the world.
Catherine has a way of communicating rich environments so vividly that you can feel the heat of the sun on your skin, smell the spicy odours and live the moving destinies of her characters. There is something so delicate in the way she conveys her stories in the most economical and almost poetical fashion. If you ever dreamed about travelling the world and waking up in a new destination every day, then this book is an affordable way to get very close to that experience.
Catherine has a way of communicating rich environments so vividly that you can feel the heat of the sun on your skin, smell the spicy odours and live the moving destinies of her characters. There is something so delicate in the way she conveys her stories in the most economical and almost poetical fashion. If you ever dreamed about travelling the world and waking up in a new destination every day, then this book is an affordable way to get very close to that experience.
July 23, 2018
The author’s ability to extricate the depths of each character is extraordinary and the moments of involvement the reader has in each short story, alternately repel and entwine us in the character’s lives. Her lack of judgement in each story allows the reader to be a voyeur in some ways and a judge in others. Coloured with such beautiful descriptions, the subtly inclusion of foreign situations and languages, I personally found myself smelling the scents of the characters and feeling the heat of both their lives and the climates. I am a huge fan of short stories and I loved it that the author created a link between all the stories that kept them as interludes in lives that could be related in so many ways. Catherine McNamara is definitely an author to follow.
February 28, 2019
A wonderfully put together collection dealing with the complexities of relationships, sexuality, personalities. The settings of these stories play an important part in the narratives. There is a quiet observation of sexual tension, especially in the first story: Adieu, Mon Doux Rivage. And the savage love in The Ukrainian Girl. I loved Love and Death and Cell Division. These stories are a masterclass in the craft of writing a short story. They have got the right tension, interesting and varied settings, distinctive characterisation and a strong theme running through the collection. A must read for anyone who is a fan of this form.
August 17, 2018
Short stores huge talent
This is a collection of short stories about different lives from different cultures beautifully written. This can help escape from the pressure of life at lunch time before you go to sleep (probably better than lunch break). Or when you have the house to yourself but if that's always the case then you may well have the joy of space more often or be able to escape the silence. Or put in a better context this will be more beneficial to read in a quiet place no distractions that will let you drift away for a while and go somewhere completely different.
This is a collection of short stories about different lives from different cultures beautifully written. This can help escape from the pressure of life at lunch time before you go to sleep (probably better than lunch break). Or when you have the house to yourself but if that's always the case then you may well have the joy of space more often or be able to escape the silence. Or put in a better context this will be more beneficial to read in a quiet place no distractions that will let you drift away for a while and go somewhere completely different.
November 22, 2018
An amazing voyage through different places and the emotions they bring, especially parts of the world that are seldom explored in modern literature ( from Ghana to the Dolomites ).
My favourite story was the heartbreaking Kingdom of Fassa story, something got through to me with both the ambience and emotional disposition of the characters as well as the story set in Mali, I think this is what Mcnamara meant by her title and its metaphor as a mapping of emotions of such diverse but always human characters,
My favourite story was the heartbreaking Kingdom of Fassa story, something got through to me with both the ambience and emotional disposition of the characters as well as the story set in Mali, I think this is what Mcnamara meant by her title and its metaphor as a mapping of emotions of such diverse but always human characters,
December 10, 2018
The Cartography of Others is an exquisite collection of short stories that traverses physical and emotional terrain. Catherine paints vivid scenes with an artist's eye. Her characters are complex, intriguing and authentic. Rather than a collection held together by a single place, the reader travels through exotic locations and situations that are unique and beautifully articulated. It feels like a voyage of discovery, one that is expertly guided, but with guidance that is never intrusive. The revelations and sensual details are captivating. A wonderful book by a very talented writer.
November 26, 2018
I love these short stories: they encompass and illuminate whole lives. Full of verve and energy, Catherine McNamara's stories are beautifully written variations on displacement, love and joie de vivre. They are diverse in the best sense: geographically, emotionally, stylistically.
The Cartography of Others is a truly moving, powerful, sexy and evocative collection. I know that I shall reread it – to enjoy, savour and admire anew.
The Cartography of Others is a truly moving, powerful, sexy and evocative collection. I know that I shall reread it – to enjoy, savour and admire anew.
July 5, 2018
This is a collection of short stories based in different countries. Some of the stories were easy to follow and I really enjoyed and appreciated whilst others left me a little baffled and ended too quickly. I have come to the conclusion that I need to know the author well to appreciate their short stories.
With thanks to Pigeonhole and Catherine McNamara for bringing this book to us.
With thanks to Pigeonhole and Catherine McNamara for bringing this book to us.
April 5, 2019
Excellent stories with real bite & flavour...though not for the fainthearted or easily-shocked. The West Africa-based stories particularly feel authentic & give a genuine background to the individual characters as they struggle with life's challenges. This gifted writer can only continue to reach the higher ground of literary acclaim in the art of the short-story as a stimulating slice of life.
November 20, 2018
Interesting settings and characters but there was something amiss with the writing. Descriptive words about people and places felt clunky as if the words had been misplaced. One good story "Three Days in Hong Kong" but the rest left me shaking my head.
July 9, 2018
Varied and captivating short story collection, instantly immersing the reader in the vivid settings. thought provoking and intriguing, I enjoyed these greatly.
August 12, 2018
Mildly interesting
A few of the stories were really good-others boring
Having lived Ghana l enjoyed her description of the locale
Read it
A few of the stories were really good-others boring
Having lived Ghana l enjoyed her description of the locale
Read it
June 5, 2019
Senuous, stunning short stories set in myriad locations, often featuring characters out of sync with their surroundings. Stories with real staying power. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2021
What a read! Such sensual writing and characters and a travelogue of settings. Pairs well with a chilled glass of Chardonnay or shot of bourbon. Put on some jazzy tunes and dig in.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews