Supporting Cast

by Kit de Waal

***From the acclaimed author of My Name is Leon***'Stories of everyday lives that will resonate and move you utterly' Stylist________________ _______________________________As she walks out of her marriage, a woman remembers the day her husband rescued a boy from drowning.A blind man on his wedding day celebrates the pursuit of love.And a young man leaves prison with only one desire - to see his son again.Kit de Waal's characters light up the page in vivid stories of thwarted desire, love and loss. With power and precision, humanity and insight, Supporting Cast captures the extraordinary moments in our ordinary lives, and the darkness and the joy of the everyday.________________________________________________'It's so good. Full of Kit's trademark humanity. I can feel my heart grow with every word' Cathy Rentzenbrink'Stunning. Kit is in utter command of language and story here, and wields them like no other writer' Donal Ryan'A magnificent study of humanity in all its various sorrows. Her writing is exquisite and the stories are beautiful in their simplicity and truth' Liz Nugent

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Short Story Collection

ebook

First published July 30, 2020

Reviews

[Emily B · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s apparent from the start that this little collection of short stories are very well written. Some stories are only a matter of pages but pack a punch none the less.
A quick read for me

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kit de Waal is a social worker and has written about fostering and adoption. She has had a career in social care as well as in writing. Her mother was Irish and her father from the Caribbean, she was brought up in Birmingham. She is my age and so remembers like I do the signs in windows saying “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. She recalls:
"We were the only black children at the Irish Community Centre and the only ones with a white mother at the West Indian Social Club."
She has written a couple of novels. This collection of short stories feature secondary characters from the novels. I haven’t read the novels and found it no barrier to reading these stories.
The themes include loneliness, cultural dislocation, thwarted desire and often important points in life like marriage, divorce, death, release from prison, children, holidays, journeys and much more. The stories themselves are often very short, sometimes a couple of pages: vignettes, just a little glimpse.
These little glimpses are powerful, but the whole can feel a little dislocated. Nevertheless they are to the point and powerful and I really enjoyed them.

[Ceecee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eclectic mix of short stories from the very talented Kit de Waal. Some are extremely short but they are thoughtful, incisive and encompass a whole range of human emotions. There’s a poignancy in quite a few stories which is very touching, for example, one story shows how a partner leaving can render you so low that you lose yourself entirely. There’s Sylvia on the bus to Leighton Buzzard to meet a solicitor to arrange a divorce whose random thoughts of a love gone sour made me smile but also sense how much she has lost. There’s a released prisoner whose only thought is a longing for his son, one story shows a brutal side of human nature, there’s a search for identity, disappointments in love, loneliness and so on. Quite a few look at the various ways that people grieve and respond to loss, one character questions the existence of God as she has lost so much, there’s sacrifice for the love of another but what unites them all is how beautifully they are written. They touch your heart and move you, some made me pause and reflect and I’m still thinking about one or two now. I really like that the group of stories ended with Big Tom Fallon’s wedding speech where he speaks of what he has lost but how much he has gained through the friendship of Paulie and the love of Marie, that is a beautiful way to end this wonderful experience.

With thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK and Kit de Waal.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories featuring many characters that have appeared in Kit De Waal's full-length novels.

I didn't realise this until now, so while I enjoyed some of these short stories, I think I should have read at least one full length novel prior.

So now I shall read My Name is Leon to give some of these short stories context.

Three stars. As with all collections, some I enjoyed more than others.

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not really a fan of short stories but when they have been written by Kit De Waal. I was intrigued. The stories all differ in length. The stories are about characters you will have already met if you've read Kit's previous books. There's always something special about the characters Kit writes about. The stories cover: grief, love, loss and happiness. They are beautifully written in Kit's own style.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin books UK and the author Kit De Waal for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[SueLucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved both of Kit de Waal’s novels I’ve read in the last few years and was delighted to find she is revisiting here some of the characters from these and giving us a taste of what the future holds for them. I was very moved by the back stories she gives us, too, and I’m thinking here particularly of the MacNaughton family who feature in several. She has such a talent for the short story form (and some are really very short indeed), conjuring up emotion and atmosphere quickly and forcefully. Highly recommended, though perhaps not before reading ‘My Name is Leon’ or ‘The Trick to Time’, both of which are terrific.

With thanks to Penguin via NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

[Fern A · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant book of short stories of varying length. I didn’t realise until after I started it that many of these stories were of the ‘supporting cast’ of Kit De Waal’s other books, those characters that maybe appear once or are sort of in the background. This book really fleshed them out and showed them to have real back stories, lives and reasons for their decisions.

Kit has such a talent for writing that can be seen in the fact in just a few pages she can make you feel a lot for a fictional character and get alongside them. She can create whole stories out of just a few lines and character studies. Her characters are also really real too, the sort of person you might meet when out and about. It serves as a reminder that everyone has stories they carry with them that shapes who they are and the overall truth or decision of something is not the result of one thing or another but a series of experiences and events that create a lens, sometimes inter generational.

I really enjoyed this! There are some great expressions and I found it all very visual. Especially loved the last story which was absolutely beautiful!

A great read whether you’ve read her other books or not!

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Backstory snippets, exposure, fragments, reminders, talking heads, filling in the gaps were some of the thoughts I had about this cluster of anecdotal stories. Having relatively recently read My Name is Leon & The Trick to Time, I spotted the characters and loved seeing them out of a story's context. I am unsure how this would read as a standalone but suspect its idiosyncrasies and beautiful writing would easily engage a virgin audience.

Supporting Cast served as a fine title for these characters who had minor or walk-on parts in other narratives, now clothed in limelight for their hasty seconds of fame. I found it a great concept and enjoyed finding these quirky, sometimes desperate, sometimes robust were (of course) more than merely also-rans

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this book reviewed on Sky Arts Bookclub Live back in Nov/Dec 2020 while stuck in a tier 4 lockdown and a corona-loner .... and thought what a lovely idea it was to compile a book of short stories based on the bit part players and characters in other books.
My niece bought it for my birthday and I’ve read it during my 30 min lunch breaks - and it’s been lovely !
I’ve enjoyed these little snippets of stories so much that I’ll probably read ‘my name is Leon’ and some of Kit De Waal’s other books to see where they fit in ☺️

[Rebecca Stonehill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous. Moving. Surprising. I will definitely be reading more from Kit de Waal

[Andrew Cotter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection - some of these stories had me close to tears and will stay with me for a long time. Kit de Waal is a wonderfully talented writer and observer of the quiet tides of life.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Tilly Norster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the stories but none stood out to me
I also didnr really feel crazy for the writing style but maybe thats just a me thing?

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of stories looking at love, loss, joy and grief. The eclectic cast of characters are bought to life in such vivid colours and even if their stories are brief at times, the depth of my feelings for them was as full as if I had known them all. An author who can provoke such vast and raw emotion from characters who we only meet briefly has a rare talent indeed.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Kit de Waals writing. I'm not a big fan of short stories but I make an exception for Kit de Waal. She writes with such feeling I always feel like I know the characters personally. The stories bring out all your emotions from happy to heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you NetGalley and Kit de Waal for the opportunity to read this amazing book.

[Madeline Lowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me when the book has the minutiae of people’s lives 😻

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

How I Came to Read This Book: I have literally zero idea. But I owned a copy!

The Plot: These are incredibly short, short stories. I'd call most of them character studies or vignettes, often no longer than 3-4 pages, told from a HUGE range of points of view. Sometimes you're in a character's head, sometimes they're just speaking (a wedding toast). Sometimes they're being spoken to (a woman connecting, sort of, with colleagues), other times they're seeing their lives flash before their eyes (a man in prison). From the inside, the outside, the past, the present, the stories represent all these wild cross-sections in life and manage to quite often pack a considerable punch, or at least, impression.

The Good & The Bad: I opened this thinking I wasn't really in the mood for short stories but here we are anyway, and you know what? I quite liked this little collection. Only one or two of the stories really overstayed their welcome for me (there was one about a table in particular that was a bit meh) and most of them I would have maybe liked to read a little bit more of.

What I mostly marvelled at though, was the ability to help sketch out quite a few details in someone's life in such a short passage of writing. No words are wasted here, and it had the incredible effect of allowing you, as the reader, to easily fill in the blanks about things that aren't said outside of the brief moments we get to share with these characters. I often find myself going 'Oh yes, *that* type of person.'

The ones about parents and children in particular hit well - an adoptive mother reflecting on her son being 'taken away' with nary a thought by the woman he's marrying. Or a proud mum who is afraid to acknowledge the direction her daughter's heart might be pointed, but does an admirable job of trying to in a time that may not have been the most gentle in which to do so.

I will note that the stories not only hop around in perspective, but timeline, with a good many of them set in the 80s, by design. What's interesting is many of the stories have a certain timelessness to them, but I'd recommend spending a moment to really absorb that time period that a story is set to help better frame the outside forces - the off-screen elements of a story - that are impacting what de Waal is choosing to show and say and why.

Overall, a solid collection. I don't think it's the most memorable thing I've ever read, but it was a refreshing change of pace for short stories.

The Bottom Line: Impressively crafted supremely short story sketches that are worth the squeeze if you're willing to really invest as a reader.

Anything Memorable?: Not really.

2023 Book Challenge?: Book #43 in 2023

[Suze · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had been on my TBR pile for a while, partly due to the reviews I’ve seen of other Kit de Waal writings, but also because of the sheer number of mentions and conversations I’ve had or heard about this author. A bit like when you’ve learned a new word or have just started running – you hear it everywhere.

The format also suited my current reading state, shying away from more standard chapter separated and longform prose and towards more bite sized pieces.

“Supporting Cast” is a series of vignettes, small paintings of someone’s life in two pages or less. It’s a whirlwind of life and loss, of love and memory.  At first I tried to remember the names, location and dates for each title but there are so many it was distracting me from the story itself.

The people in the pages spring forth fully formed, but mid conversation. Each one takes you through their wedding, divorce, death, journey – release from prison, holiday to a caravan site or Europe, in a way which I always felt I was running to join in but, like a ceilidh, once you’re in and you know the steps, it all falls into place.

One point about this which, I confess, I wasn’t aware of when I started reading this – the characters in this book have appeared in other novels and short stories of Kit De Waal’s. I have some catching up to do, but I don’t think it impacted my enjoyment of this. In fact, I think I’d love to come back to it after reading some more of her stuff and connecting those dots as we learn more about the background characters and mentioned locations. It’s such a great idea, I love it that the end of a book or story doesn’t mean the end – they’re still living their lives and dreaming of the next train trip or family get together.  I’d be interested to know what it’s like for someone who’s read everything and can spot the references.

Recommended for some short – but not light hearted – stories. They are all wonderfully human but some of them are quite hard to read as they’re so packed full of emotion.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for the ARC. This book is out to buy at the end of July - pre-order now!

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting range of experimental short stories. Many of them feel more like fragments which hinge on the presumption of knowledge of the originating text, but others work well as self-contained pieces. I actually really liked some of the latter ones, which I believe stem from De Waal's novel The Trick to Time, which I haven't yet read.

Some of the ones I enjoyed:

Gayle- probably the most effective story, about a woman visiting her father in hospital and working through her pre-prepared topics.

Cornelia MacNaughton- perhaps the most dramatic tale, of a jilted bride attending a funeral at the same church a year later, at which her groom is present. I liked the dramatic, ambiguous ending, when she slips on her wedding shoes and heads towards him - to dance, or to confront him?

William MacNaughton - some really beautiful lines in this one about a carpenter's apprentice who has no faith in his own skill. Again, I enjoyed the gaps in the story-telling (perhaps this would be less so if I knew the originating novel).

Elisabeth Graffin von Everstein-Ohsen- interesting gap between narrator's professed devotion to her son and his seeming revulsion. The disparity made me want to learn more about the characters.

Big Tom Fallon- I liked the conceit of the wedding speech, and the warmth the whole thing radiates- which is very de Waal.

The stories from My Name is Leon were generally less engaging to me- but I did like the flash fiction ones. Some good examples in Castro, Crazy Rose and Mr Devlin of how to write effective micro stories.

[Annette Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supporting Cast by Kit de Waal is an ingenious idea, beautifully executed. The book is a collection of short (sometimes very short - a few are only a page or so in length) stories designed to tug at your heartstrings. The stories are focused on characters that readers of de Waal's previous books may recognise, and this adds an extra layer of enjoyment for familiar readers, but it is not necessary to have that background knowledge to enjoy this book. The simplicity of the stories is echoed in the writing style, which allows the emotion to shine through. Each story captures a specific moment in time, and the associated memories and feelings, e.g. a woman on the way to see a solicitor about divorce remembers the early days of her marriage while a man being released from prison dreams of seeing his young son. The recurring theme of lost love adds a poignancy to the book that I found both beautiful and moving. Fans of de Waal will eat this up, and new readers will find it a perfect introduction to her work.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher ,all opinions are my own.

[that short fiction site · Rating 4 out of 5]

➡️ Introduction
I first learned about Kit De Waal’s work during a seminar held by The Stinging Fly. I ordered a copy of her short story collection after hearing her speak, and it became the first book I read in 2023. I’m now eager to read more from her as a result of what turned out to be an intriguing introduction to her work.

✅ Positives
Collisions of time and space
The arrangement of Supporting Cast puts varied characters, settings, and times side by side. It’s here that the short story collection shows its brilliance. Readers can travel through decades of time or hundreds of miles with the turn of a page. Most of these stories are only a few pages long.

The juxtaposition of these stories is enjoyable. Going from cover to cover, readers can journey from a 1981 police station to a 2016 Morrisons staff canteen. De Waals’s voice is consistent across the book which helps bind stories together. They all feel...

Visit that short fiction site to read the full review.

[Nigel Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this collection of short stories so I could fill a gap in my reading experience, namely that I hadn't read short stories since I was a teen. I'm glad I chose Kit's book: it mesmerised me and I finished it in no time.

The tales are sometimes succinct, other times more protracted, each conveying the essence of characters and events from history. Kit's writing style changes subtly depending on the era, location and personality. There is distress, darkness, violence and unhappiness. There is also lightness of touch, humour and love. And always the neat trick of making me feel that I was in a series of conversations - some brief with a total stranger, others quite detailed and knowing.

The book also had the happy side effect of making want to try to write some of my own short stories, as that's also something missing in my life.

Excellent. I have a sense I will go back to this collection time and again.

[Charlotte Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I pre-ordered this book as soon as I heard it was coming out in order to support the author. I'd never read anything of hers before but had only heard good things so wanted to give this short story collection a go.

Unfortunately, despite enjoying many of the stories, most of them were linked to Kit's other books, particularly 'My Name is Leon' which I haven't yet read. Each story is a character study and many link together, giving the collection a great continuity throughout. At just 200 pages and containing 22 stories, each one is very short and I was amazed at how much heart the author managed to pack into each one.

Overall I liked this collection but I don't think it will be very memorable to me. However, if you've read Kit de Waal's author works, this may resonate more with you as you will already know some of the characters.

3 out of 5 stars!

[Tracy Fells · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess that I read this before reading 'My Name is Leon' (on my tbr list!), but even though this is a collection of short stories based on the characters from that novel (they are the supporting cast) it really didn't matter or hinder my enjoyment. My love for these characters grew and grew as I read. de Waal's ability to make you genuinely care and empathise with people from widely diverse backgrounds and outlooks is astonishing. Many of these stories triggered tears for me, and I could barely finish Castro's story (The Ancestors) because it almost broke me. Emotional and honest writing throughout.

I've been a fan of de Waal's Flash Fiction for years and now need to seek out her novels.

[Nicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was intrigued when I saw that Kit de Waal had written a collection of short stories. I have very much enjoyed and rated her novels and wanted the chance to read her latest creation. I was not disappointed. Every single story (some short, some a little longer) were exquisite. I recognised some of the locations and characters, but they all stand alone and each and every character touched my heart. I didn't want to put the stories down until I had demolished every one of them.
#SupportingCast shows the authors talent and I can't wait to see what she produces next.
Thank you to the author, her publishers and #NetGalley for the opportunity to discover and review this beautiful collection.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The blurb barely covers this. This is a really interesting book which is just brilliantly well written.

It is a series of short stories that narrates the lives of around 20 people not necessarily at all connected, but each written in a completely distinguishing manner. Each character is fleshed out with their own internal voice coming off the page and de Waal has done a phenomenal job of writing each one differently.

The stories themselves are interesting, some dark, some less so. Some are introspective. Some are a story about another person, from the perspective of the first person narrator. This is just a masterclass in character building.

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book by Kit de Waal I read, and even though it's a collection of short stories featuring some secondary characters from her previous novels, you don't need to have read the novels as the characters are well-written and the author manages to show their personality in a concise way. Female loneliness, cultural misunderstanding, joy and grief are all depicted with such vigor and strength, that each story causes the reader experience powerful emotions. I am grateful to have discovered such a talented contemporary master of a short story and I look forward to reading her novels.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggle to write reviews for short story collections, as they feel much more personal to the author than a novel. I felt this collection lacked vibrancy, emotion and passion. A great short story resonates and stays with the reader long after it has been read. I can't say that I'll remember any one of these stories. Cornelia MacNaughton, William MacNaughton and Big Tom Fallon are the cast members I most enjoyed the company of.

[Lydia Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my recent favourite collections is Supporting Cast by Kit de Waal.

Supporting Cast tells the stories of minor characters that appear in de Waal’s many novels- literally, the supporting cast. Some stories cover backstories, whilst others cover events that happen after the novel closes. I think this is such a great concept for a collection! So often, I get to the end of a book and wish I knew more about certain characters. I think more authors should do this

[Sarah O'Riordan | travelseatsreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely stunning collection of short stories from the amazing Kit De Waal. I adore Kit's writing, especially how richly developed the characters are. This short story collection further delves into the characters of previous books and reintroduces us to their charm and often heartbreak. I never want to put a Kit De Waal book down, and this one was no different.