Soft Fruit in the Sun

by Oliver Zarandi

In this provocative debut collection, Oliver Zarandi introduces a new hybrid genre perhaps best defined as ‘tender body horror’, in which frank and naturalistic explorations of familial, romantic and sexual relationships are juxtaposed with characters who bleed incessantly, or live in other people’s bodies, or eat furniture, or casually conspire with their lovers to kill families and animals alike.

Soft Fruit in the Sun couches modern truths in darkly-comic parables that bite like unseen teeth. By turns funny and absurd and quietly grotesque, as affecting as they are razor-sharp, Zarandi’s stories play out in a universe both like and unlike ours. A world where grief, eroticism, poverty, body image, toxic masculinity, mental illness, and the inherently dysfunctional dynamic between people all recur — steeped in dream logic and cut through with a dry, ironic wit.

Lovers of Lydia Davis, Carmen Maria Machado, and the strangeness of Dino Buzzati and Roland Topor will devour Soft Fruit in the Sun like manna.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fiction

168 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2019

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oliver Zarandi's Soft Fruit in the Sun had me grimacing and sniggering in equal measure - earning me some odd glances on the tube. His M.O. is a hybrid form part-short story, part-dream, part-poem. The lucidity with which he writes about the human body in all its physical repulsiveness is matched by the clarity with which he documents the mental horror of 21st century sexual and familial relationships.

He switches gender perspective in a refreshing way that continually caught me off guard, writing now from a male viewpoint and now from a female. His sensitivity to insecurities and sufferings across gender and age is testament to a strongly empathetic imagination.

Swallowing - an essay, with which the book finishes, is a disarmingly honest account of Zarandi's history of eating disorder and mental illness. Most striking were the descriptions of his problems with swallowing, his need to run a hand along the marble objects in the house, his early preoccupation with violence - all images, phrases, and themes dominant in the preceding stories (sometimes verbatim) which adds a whole new layer to the stories and their relationship with the author.

Weird, wacky, funny, repulsive, honest and brave Soft Fruit in the Sun is a thought-provoking collection of writing that will not fail to elicit some strong reactions, and hopefully open some eyes to the problems around eating disorders, particularly among young men.

[Mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow

had to wait 2 months for this book to ship to me but we’ll worth the wait. i didn’t know much about this going into it and did not expect to feel so much for it.

i’ve been reading a lot of collections of stories lately and this one feels the most out together in a sense that all the stories feel connected and after reading the last story they do all tie together.

almost made me cry a bit and definitely had me reflecting on my own life

i’ll be thinking about this one for a while

[Rick Claypool · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are strange and succinct and oozy and magical. I can't wait to read more from Oliver Zarandi.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloody, gory, gruesome, disgusting, and original. Hysterical and heartbreaking. Twisted fables like Robert Rodriguez writing and directing a fairy tale. The story 'Blood!' might be my favorite.

[Franco Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

a visceral, cinematic collection of stories. oliver's work is unlike most contemporary fiction and literature is better for having his voice.

[snuggle sisters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this a few years ago and have found myself going back regularly for the odd story when I crave it. Been wanting more from the author or to find something similar since. Great book

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of this is very clearly a young man's ideas of what it's like to be a middle-aged woman, but the parts that aren't are wonderfully strange and upsetting. My personal favorite is the restaurant with the old woman in a tub who is constantly bleeding, who the protagonist of the story resents for taking all the attention.

Anyway, pretty good collection of short stories, if it pushed further in one direction is would be incredible absurdist humor and in the other direction it would be more of the present moment's literary horror-mush. Clearly I am biased about which direction I think is better, but I stand by it.

[Laura Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parts of this collection made me laugh, made me do a double-take. The compression of one-page tales, the powerful twists in 'The Staging of Accidents', are some of the best bits. There's a fairy tale quality to them all, written with a sort of cautionary remove, which at times added pathos, and other times, lost my interest.

[Min · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up in a local bookshop on a whim and it was exactly what I needed. Reading this person's work I see some of my friends in the essay and it makes me sad but also I just wanna be friends with the author and vibe.

[A C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woah that guy just ate wood like what the freal!? Me when I'm bleeding constantly in a cafe and I lowkey steal someones man. Some of it I could tell the link to deeper meanings but some just felt more like weird for the sake of weird but I still liked them.

[Sara McCafferty · Rating 3 out of 5]

starts out tottering between tales full of silly and grotesque imagery but about 75% of the way through, becomes poignant as well. i like the last bits the best.