The Elevator

by Imogen Reid

Chapbook short story.
‘A glinting shiv of a fiction. Its flickering scenes, charged objects and uneasy associations are a pocket grammar of cinematic menace’ Jennifer Hodgson

Imogen Reid completed a practice-based PhD at Chelsea College of Arts, her practice being writing. Her thesis focused on the ways in which film has been used by novelists as a resource to transform their writing practice, and on how the non-conventional writing techniques generated by film could, in turn, produce alternative forms of readability. Her work has appeared in Hotel, LossLit, gorse, Zeno Press, Elbow Room, Sublunary Editions, IceFloe Press, ToCall Magazine, Experiment-O, Soanyway and The Babel Tower Notice Board. She has a pamphlet with Gordian Projects.

12 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2021

About the author

Imogen Reid completed a practice-based PhD at Chelsea College of Arts, her practice being writing. Her thesis focused on the ways in which film has been used by novelists as a resource to transform their writing practice, and on how the non-conventional writing techniques generated by film could, in turn, produce alternative forms of readability. Her work has appeared in Hotel, LossLit, gorse, Zeno Press, Elbow Room, Sublunary Editions, IceFloe Press, ToCall Magazine, Experiment-O, Soanyway and The Babel Tower Notice Board. She has a pamphlet with Gordian Projects and has also been published by Vanguard Editions and Rossi Contemporary.

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atmosphere of Paranoia
Review of the Nightjar Press chapbook (April 2021)

through the gap between the closing doors, you can see a man staggering down a narrow corridor. Above him, a faltering fluorescent light flickers on then off and on again, effacing then reinstating his shadowy silhouette as he stumbles in fits and starts towards you. Light cutting out darkness cutting out light, erasing and reconstituting this or that feature, a gloved hand, fingers snatching, lunging forward towards the elevator doors
lock shut
before
you
feel the frantic sound of footfalls resonating in and around you - Opening paragraph from The Elevator

The Elevator builds up a harrowing atmosphere of menace and entrapment in scenes that shift from being encased in a metal elevator to being in a bedroom with a propeller ceiling fan wafting above you. In each scene there is a fly also entrapped either within a ceiling light or behind a lampshade as if it was a microcosm to the situation of the protagonist. This was very evocative and effective writing.

I read The Elevator as part of my initial batch of selections from the limited edition short story chapbooks published by Nightjar Press. Nightjar is run by Nicolas Royle, author and editor, who is probably best known for his annual selection of Best British Short Stories (2011+ and ongoing) and for the recent book-obsessive memoir White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (2021).