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10 Short Stories You Must Read This Year
Kylie has a close encounter with a selfhelp guru in a stadium full of people . . . Austin North is strangely smitten by a new student from Sudan . . . Elizabeth’s Christmas letters take on a life of their own . . . Tom is on the bus with Tara Finke – Parramatta Road never looked so good . . . Funny, poignant, perceptive, these vivid tales by some of our bestknown writers capture contemporary Australia in all its variety.
274 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
11 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Robert Drewe
60 books81 followersRobert Drewe is among Australia’s most loved writers – of novels, memoir and short stories. His iconic Australian books include The Shark Net, The Bodysurfers and Our Sunshine. He is also editor of Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories annual series. Recently, he has revisited the short story himself, with a masterful new collection, The Rip. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about storytelling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
February 7, 2011
10 really good short stories. I tend to avoid collection of short stories because they often have a tendency to leave me feeling like I have sat through a round of Tropfest. I find the stories are arty crud that only make sense to arty people written by authors that think a happy ending is selling out. This collection was wonderful, I enjoyed almost every story and found myself retelling them to my husband over a late night coffee. I take this as a sure sign that they were good.
My favourite was "Elizabeth's News" by Monica McInerney, this left a smile on my face. I refused to read any more stories for at least a couple of hours, as I was enjoying the happy feeling I was left with.
The final story in the book "Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife" by Jack Marx actually left me so upset I wanted to send a piece of hate mail to the author, something along the lines of "Dear Jack, Fuck you". I will blame my own motherhood for these emotions, and even as I googled his name I suspected that the author would relish receiving such a passionate email about his work.
My favourite was "Elizabeth's News" by Monica McInerney, this left a smile on my face. I refused to read any more stories for at least a couple of hours, as I was enjoying the happy feeling I was left with.
The final story in the book "Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife" by Jack Marx actually left me so upset I wanted to send a piece of hate mail to the author, something along the lines of "Dear Jack, Fuck you". I will blame my own motherhood for these emotions, and even as I googled his name I suspected that the author would relish receiving such a passionate email about his work.
February 28, 2016
I sort of liked a few of these. I HATED the rest! Especially the last one. Jack Marx is a sick fuck and i will never never never touch another thing with his name on it again.
February 18, 2010
The most startling thing about this anthology is that most of the works feature love stories. I rode the weekend on a wave of literary pleasure.
The collection starts off with Robert Drewe’s brooding story of unrequited love, in which the object of the protagonist’s desire happens to be his best friend’s wife. I very much doubt I’d read this as a novel, but the beauty of the short story is that it usually ends before properly resolving the central dilemma. A View of Mount Warning is no exception, which means I can cheerfully imagine the unfaithful husband dying from a Viagra-induced stoke, thereby freeing his wife and best friend to have their happily ever after.
I found the stories by male authors to be darker, moodier, ... well, self-indulgent. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I found many of the protagonists a challenge to relate to.
Tom Keneally’s Blackberries was the biggest disappointment for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or his narrative style is a little more ponderous that the other writers’, or it may just be that I had no sympathy for his protagonist. It failed to move me.
Life in a Hotel Room by William McInnes was almost a showstopper. His protagonist reflects on his life of constant business travel. At a hotel, he meets a Philippino (sic). I thought, Maybe it’s deliberate. But in the absence of any other cues, what’s a reader to assume, especially given that the protagonist is such a well-travelled fellow? Author fail. Editor fail. All sorts of fail.
My least favourite protagonist in the book has to be Duncan in Peter Temple’s Ithaca On My Mind. I felt nothing but contempt for the obnoxious, egotistic writer past his prime and his miserable life surrounded by sycophants, enablers and gold-diggers. The twist at the end is unexpected, but my appreciation was significantly muted by my desire to see every character in the story jumping off a cliff.
Compare this with Jack Marx’s protagonist in Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife , who is arguably the most emotionally and physically brutal of the lot. And yet the prose is haunting, beautiful words juxtaposed with ugly images. This story surprised me at every turn -- sure, I can argue it’s predictable, but only in the sense that Marx leads the reader from one awful realisation to the next. It’s a story of addiction, obsession, possession and madness.
The female authors -- and protagonisits -- provide relief from their more sombre male counterparts. I don’t feel I liked them better because they’re by and about women per se, but because the majority of these stories are more whimsical, more humorous, more optimistic. In that sense, I suppose, there’s some lack of diversity in this anthology.
Kathy Lette provides a respite following Drewe’s rather gloomy piece. Hate At First Sight is an irreverent, non-PC exploration of beauty and what happens women use it to measure their self-worth. Lette pokes fun at Sydney’s man drought and city/country prejudices.
Anita Heiss and Toni Jordan offer some lighter fare. In You Can Change Your Life, Jordan uses a self-help seminar as a backdrop for a most unusual first meeting. This story has more of a chick-lit feel, and while I appreciated the humour, I didn’t feel altogether satisfied by the end.
Manhattan Dreaming features a more neurotic protagonist, Lauren, who has been offered a huge career opportunity, but who feels torn by family ties and her heart’s irrational desire to rekindle a soured romance. I loved Heiss’s depiction of stubborn Australian parochialism in Lauren’s father, but I couldn’t empathise with Lauren. Her lack of self-esteem was frustrating, and she doesn’t change much by the end except maybe to realise how silly she is.
Monica McInerney’s older, rather unusual protagonist is a welcome contrast from most of the comedic heroines in the anthology, and so too is the more internalised narrative in Elizabeth’s News. I love the notion of healing and making human connections through stories. McInerney explores grief and recovery, and the uniqueness of that process, which may be difficult for others to comprehend. In Elizabeth, McInerney conveys the sheer pleasure of pleasing oneself.
But my favourite in the anthology is a beautiful, bittersweet tale by Melina Marchetta. Surprisingly, it features a male protagonist. Twelve Minutes explores the innocence of love, its frailty against—and ability to survive—life’s cataclysms. It goes from euphoria to devastation in one flick of a page. It’s a story about risk and vulnerability and grief and it’s so poignant and heartbreaking and lovely that I read it twice in one sitting. Marchetta’s style is excruciatingly subtle, every sentence packed with nuance without crowding the reader.
I’m convinced it ends happily. It must.
For a more detailed review, see Book Thingo.
The collection starts off with Robert Drewe’s brooding story of unrequited love, in which the object of the protagonist’s desire happens to be his best friend’s wife. I very much doubt I’d read this as a novel, but the beauty of the short story is that it usually ends before properly resolving the central dilemma. A View of Mount Warning is no exception, which means I can cheerfully imagine the unfaithful husband dying from a Viagra-induced stoke, thereby freeing his wife and best friend to have their happily ever after.
I found the stories by male authors to be darker, moodier, ... well, self-indulgent. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I found many of the protagonists a challenge to relate to.
Tom Keneally’s Blackberries was the biggest disappointment for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or his narrative style is a little more ponderous that the other writers’, or it may just be that I had no sympathy for his protagonist. It failed to move me.
Life in a Hotel Room by William McInnes was almost a showstopper. His protagonist reflects on his life of constant business travel. At a hotel, he meets a Philippino (sic). I thought, Maybe it’s deliberate. But in the absence of any other cues, what’s a reader to assume, especially given that the protagonist is such a well-travelled fellow? Author fail. Editor fail. All sorts of fail.
My least favourite protagonist in the book has to be Duncan in Peter Temple’s Ithaca On My Mind. I felt nothing but contempt for the obnoxious, egotistic writer past his prime and his miserable life surrounded by sycophants, enablers and gold-diggers. The twist at the end is unexpected, but my appreciation was significantly muted by my desire to see every character in the story jumping off a cliff.
Compare this with Jack Marx’s protagonist in Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife , who is arguably the most emotionally and physically brutal of the lot. And yet the prose is haunting, beautiful words juxtaposed with ugly images. This story surprised me at every turn -- sure, I can argue it’s predictable, but only in the sense that Marx leads the reader from one awful realisation to the next. It’s a story of addiction, obsession, possession and madness.
The female authors -- and protagonisits -- provide relief from their more sombre male counterparts. I don’t feel I liked them better because they’re by and about women per se, but because the majority of these stories are more whimsical, more humorous, more optimistic. In that sense, I suppose, there’s some lack of diversity in this anthology.
Kathy Lette provides a respite following Drewe’s rather gloomy piece. Hate At First Sight is an irreverent, non-PC exploration of beauty and what happens women use it to measure their self-worth. Lette pokes fun at Sydney’s man drought and city/country prejudices.
Anita Heiss and Toni Jordan offer some lighter fare. In You Can Change Your Life, Jordan uses a self-help seminar as a backdrop for a most unusual first meeting. This story has more of a chick-lit feel, and while I appreciated the humour, I didn’t feel altogether satisfied by the end.
Manhattan Dreaming features a more neurotic protagonist, Lauren, who has been offered a huge career opportunity, but who feels torn by family ties and her heart’s irrational desire to rekindle a soured romance. I loved Heiss’s depiction of stubborn Australian parochialism in Lauren’s father, but I couldn’t empathise with Lauren. Her lack of self-esteem was frustrating, and she doesn’t change much by the end except maybe to realise how silly she is.
Monica McInerney’s older, rather unusual protagonist is a welcome contrast from most of the comedic heroines in the anthology, and so too is the more internalised narrative in Elizabeth’s News. I love the notion of healing and making human connections through stories. McInerney explores grief and recovery, and the uniqueness of that process, which may be difficult for others to comprehend. In Elizabeth, McInerney conveys the sheer pleasure of pleasing oneself.
But my favourite in the anthology is a beautiful, bittersweet tale by Melina Marchetta. Surprisingly, it features a male protagonist. Twelve Minutes explores the innocence of love, its frailty against—and ability to survive—life’s cataclysms. It goes from euphoria to devastation in one flick of a page. It’s a story about risk and vulnerability and grief and it’s so poignant and heartbreaking and lovely that I read it twice in one sitting. Marchetta’s style is excruciatingly subtle, every sentence packed with nuance without crowding the reader.
I’m convinced it ends happily. It must.
For a more detailed review, see Book Thingo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2012
So, this has been on my 'to read' shelf for a long time because it has a short story in there by none other than Melina Marchetta. I was like, "Sweet! Something by a favorite author that I haven't read!"
Fast forward to a couple of months later (meaning now..), and I pick it up for $.99, a real bargain.
I was totally going to wait and read her story as the final and culminating cherry on the cake...but of course, I couldn't do that. So I flipped to her story and peeked at the topic.
I saw Tom, Finke and Francesca and about flipped out. Was this a heretofore unknown 30 page companion to two beloved books?!?!??!! Saving Francesca and The Piper's Son.
Erm... Nope. I'm glad I looked ahead.
It's just 30 pages of the Tom/Tara drama that unfolds in The Piper's Son, and judging by the date, this was published before Piper's Son.
Disappointment! But actually, it's really cool to see Tom and Tara's torrid twosome as it's own little beast, and I'm totally jealous of people who get to read and fall in love with MM's stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm really not a lover of short stories, and usually lose patience 2-4 stories into a collection. But with my recent obsession with Aussie authors lately, I'm going to savor these stories and find new works to search out. There is a story in here by Thomas Keneally, the author of Schindler's List.
Fast forward to a couple of months later (meaning now..), and I pick it up for $.99, a real bargain.
I was totally going to wait and read her story as the final and culminating cherry on the cake...but of course, I couldn't do that. So I flipped to her story and peeked at the topic.
I saw Tom, Finke and Francesca and about flipped out. Was this a heretofore unknown 30 page companion to two beloved books?!?!??!! Saving Francesca and The Piper's Son.
Erm... Nope. I'm glad I looked ahead.
It's just 30 pages of the Tom/Tara drama that unfolds in The Piper's Son, and judging by the date, this was published before Piper's Son.
Disappointment! But actually, it's really cool to see Tom and Tara's torrid twosome as it's own little beast, and I'm totally jealous of people who get to read and fall in love with MM's stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm really not a lover of short stories, and usually lose patience 2-4 stories into a collection. But with my recent obsession with Aussie authors lately, I'm going to savor these stories and find new works to search out. There is a story in here by Thomas Keneally, the author of Schindler's List.
September 1, 2012
This book has a great cover, ten pairs of shorts on the washing line, cleverly illustrating what’s inside the covers: ten short stories by popular authors of 2009. The book was a giveaway with the 2009 Books Alive campaign. Robert’s Drewe’s View of Mount Warning succinctly describes unrequited love. Kathy Lette’s Hate At First Sight warns against judging on appearances. In Life in a Hotel Room, William McInnes has the reader pondering random acts of kindness. Elizabeth’s Letter, by Monica McInerney will resonate with readers who write or receive Christmas letters. Peter Temple’s Ithica In My Mind describes what happens to a once-popular author when his work no longer sells. In Blackberries by Thomas Keneally, a high school English teacher finds himself profoundly affected and humbled by a young Sudanese refugee. In Twelve Minutes, Melina Marchetta examines how people react to tragedy. Anita Heiss’s Manhattan Dreaming shows what it takes to really appreciate a life opportunity. Toni Jordan shows us just how You Can Change Your Life with her delightfully funny offering. Jack Marx tells a very dark tale in Letter From a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife. A tantalising taste of works by ten great authors.
September 27, 2013
I'm saying that I have read this but truthfully I only read the Melina Marchetta story.. In saying that I don't have to return it to the library for a while still so if I get to them I will definitely read the rest! But I love anything Melina so I adored this short story and what was a surprise was that it was Tom and Tara story! I mean I knew it was but just to actually read it and experience the world of these characters again was exciting! And I guess to get this part of the story from a different perspective is what I was most excited about..
February 12, 2012
This was in some way connected with the Australian Governments Get-People-Reading initiative in 2010. I picked it up as one of the books I chucked into the fill-a-box-for-$5.
Overall, a very good read with a diverse and varied group of Aussie writers. Tom Keneally's "Blackberries" was a standout (remember the Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith?), Anita Hess' "Manhattan Dreaming" was disappointing. Kathy Lette's story "Hate at First Sight" was entirely predictable, but I'm not a chick-lit fan. Loved "A View of Mt Warning" by Robert Drewe and "Elizabeth's News" by Monica McInerney.
Overall, a very good read with a diverse and varied group of Aussie writers. Tom Keneally's "Blackberries" was a standout (remember the Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith?), Anita Hess' "Manhattan Dreaming" was disappointing. Kathy Lette's story "Hate at First Sight" was entirely predictable, but I'm not a chick-lit fan. Loved "A View of Mt Warning" by Robert Drewe and "Elizabeth's News" by Monica McInerney.
April 15, 2011
A nice collection of short stories written by some famous Australian authors. Definitely not written in the MFA-style; these were true stories with a story arc. Some were so good that I was sorry they ended. Some were humorous; some were sad, but all were worth reading. One of my favorites (and I had several I really, really liked) was "Elizabeth's News" by Monica McInerney, about a woman who sends fictitious Christmas letters to just about everyone for whom she can find an address.
October 9, 2015
An interesting anthology of warm, funny, dark, sinister, uplifting short stories from a pool of talented authors. Some of my favourite stories from this collection include Elizabeth's News by Monica McInerney (this story forms the kernel that was later developed into the novel Hello from the Gillespies) ; You Can Change Your Life by Toni Jordan; Manhattan Dreaming by Anita Heiss (later to be developed into a novel by the same name) and Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife by Jack Marx.
January 11, 2010
A diverse collection of contemporary short stories by established Australian authors. I enjoyed each of these stories very much. It was great to read a story by those authors well known to me and also great to read something by the authors I had never read before.
The diversity of the stories was very appealing.
The diversity of the stories was very appealing.
January 9, 2011
A lightweight collection of short stories about Australians and the wide variety of Australian personalities, written for Books Alive! 2009 by well-known Australian authors. I hadn't read any of the authors before and I will try some now I have had a taster. A good book to read if you want to try out some Australian fiction before plunging into a longer length novel.
Read
August 11, 2016Genuinely just bought this for Twelve Minutes: the Condensed Tom & Tara Story, which, unsurprisingly, did things to me. (I feel like Marchetta changed some things about the original scenes, though? Or maybe that's just a sign it's time for my Saving Francesca/The Piper's Son reread.) Maybe in two years I'll be less obsessed and come back to read the rest of these stories.
April 7, 2010
Some of these Aussie authors were kind of terrible. The characters were so cliche! I don't read a lot of short stories collections so maybe the expectations for characters developed in 20 pages are minimal.
November 26, 2013
Some of these stories were unexpectedly good, some funny, some revealing all definitely readable. I've just recently discovered the pleasure of Short Stories. They can be picked up and put down with hardly a care in the world, great for commuter travel.
Read
August 6, 2011Some of these stories were really good. I recommend this book.
August 22, 2013
Really solid collection .
April 26, 2013
Some great little stories here, a few I wanted to be much much longer!
December 14, 2013
Quite good. All the short stories are great and interesting. Some I wish were longer as they did lack a bit of detail.
June 14, 2014
Love a good short story.
May 9, 2015
A mixed bag of goodies - some leave you wanting more and others you wished you hadn't eaten!!
August 4, 2015
A motley crew leaning on the side of average because I'm not the biggest fan of short stories.
June 26, 2016
Didn't get past the first two stories, got distracted by other books. This tells me it wasn't particularly gripping.
January 12, 2022
this was getting close to be 3 stars.
but the last 3 stories saved it.
thank god because i was done with this book even at the halfway point. i was committing myself to finishing this in months but it's only the 11th and that's one book done.
this is a tangent but i find that read more when the year starts. i'm more motivated because it's january and then the following months arrive and the weeks get longer.
anyway.
let's get back to this book. there's a speckling of parts and stories that i really liked and a few that i really didn't.
i liked 2, 8, 9, and 10. i paid attention more to the stories. i think that the characters in these stories, i were drawn to the most. i either found something relatable or like 10, the set-up was amazing right away. 10 is my favourite.
1 and 4 were okay. honestly if we were rating them individually, 1 and 4 would be 3 stars because it's average. i don't hate it. i don't love it.
i didn't get 3, 5, 6, and 7. maybe because it's the middle part and for me that's the hurdle and it's where i get into a reading slump. because when you get to the middle, everything feels so far away still. i feel like i should finish it because i've gotten so far already but also... i'm only halfway???
thank god it ended pretty strong.
so it's pretty even then. 4 that i liked, 4 i didn't like and 2 that were pretty meh.
i honestly don't feel like writing individual notes on each one. i have bookmarked a lot of pages so i do have a lot of notes but because they are short stories, i don't see the point in dissecting everything.
this is a lame review. i don't necessarily agree that these are 10 SHORT STORIES THAT I MUST READ THIS YEAR but maybe for 2009, it was mind-blowing. maybe not so much this year. i've lagged 12 years.
but the last 3 stories saved it.
thank god because i was done with this book even at the halfway point. i was committing myself to finishing this in months but it's only the 11th and that's one book done.
this is a tangent but i find that read more when the year starts. i'm more motivated because it's january and then the following months arrive and the weeks get longer.
anyway.
let's get back to this book. there's a speckling of parts and stories that i really liked and a few that i really didn't.
i liked 2, 8, 9, and 10. i paid attention more to the stories. i think that the characters in these stories, i were drawn to the most. i either found something relatable or like 10, the set-up was amazing right away. 10 is my favourite.
1 and 4 were okay. honestly if we were rating them individually, 1 and 4 would be 3 stars because it's average. i don't hate it. i don't love it.
i didn't get 3, 5, 6, and 7. maybe because it's the middle part and for me that's the hurdle and it's where i get into a reading slump. because when you get to the middle, everything feels so far away still. i feel like i should finish it because i've gotten so far already but also... i'm only halfway???
thank god it ended pretty strong.
so it's pretty even then. 4 that i liked, 4 i didn't like and 2 that were pretty meh.
i honestly don't feel like writing individual notes on each one. i have bookmarked a lot of pages so i do have a lot of notes but because they are short stories, i don't see the point in dissecting everything.
this is a lame review. i don't necessarily agree that these are 10 SHORT STORIES THAT I MUST READ THIS YEAR but maybe for 2009, it was mind-blowing. maybe not so much this year. i've lagged 12 years.
April 24, 2019
This is probably the quickest read I've had this year (so far). After reading book after book of disappointment, I was looking for something chill and easy to tackle. This book just happens to be lying around the house—so I took it. It was quite enjoyable and really interesting, because I've never read anything by any of these authors before, so I really had no expectations.
Since this is a relatively small book, I will also keep my review short. Here goes.
The book was rather nice. I like that it's relatively light—although definitely not for all ages, but also not too explicit—and that they are all good authors—no one shines too bright in comparison, I find. The plots are relatively well-written and, for short stories, well executed. I think one of them ended up being a novel in the end, but that is no longer part of this book. If there's anything I wish to change from this book, I wish there were more unique Australian things being included. I find only 3 out of 10 stories seem to have that—and one of them only rather briefly. But that doesn't really bother me all that much.
My favourite stories are Twelve Minutes, Elizabeth's News and Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife. They are the most brilliant!
Since this is a relatively small book, I will also keep my review short. Here goes.
The book was rather nice. I like that it's relatively light—although definitely not for all ages, but also not too explicit—and that they are all good authors—no one shines too bright in comparison, I find. The plots are relatively well-written and, for short stories, well executed. I think one of them ended up being a novel in the end, but that is no longer part of this book. If there's anything I wish to change from this book, I wish there were more unique Australian things being included. I find only 3 out of 10 stories seem to have that—and one of them only rather briefly. But that doesn't really bother me all that much.
My favourite stories are Twelve Minutes, Elizabeth's News and Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife. They are the most brilliant!
February 4, 2018
Another book that has been in my TBR for a long long time.
Each of the short stories is 20-30 pages long and so easily read at a sitting.
Although some of the writers specialise in crime fiction, only a couple of the stories could be labelled crime fiction. Most of the stories challenge the reader to build the background scenario from the clues given.
1. A View of Mount Warning, Robert Drew
2. Hate at First Sight, Kathy Lette
3. Life in a Hotel Room, William McInnes
4. Elizabeth's News. Monica McInerney
5. Ithaca in Mind, Peter Temple
6. Blackberries, Tom Keneally
7. Twelve Minutes, Melina Marchetta
8. Manhattan Dreaming, Anita Heiss
9. You Can Change Your Life, Toni Jordan
10. Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife, Jack Marx.
I loved the irony of A View of Mount Warning, the comedy of Elizabeth's News and the sadness of
Letter from a Drunk to a Long Gone Wife.
July 3, 2018
This book affirmed my belief that I really don't like short stories! They can start off well enough but never come to much. Of the ten stories in the book, there was only one that I really liked. I will now take the book down to a little park in town where there is a small bookshelf for people to donate books. Maybe someone else will get more out of the book than I did.
February 21, 2019
Absolutely loved most of them. The last one really isn't worth reading at all. No resolution, no absolution, just trapped in the mind of a monster. Worst thing about it, is that it is probably very very real (or at least a representation of something that is real, for way too many people).
Note to the editor: A trigger warning would have been nice
Note to the editor: A trigger warning would have been nice
November 3, 2019
I liked a couple of these stories and the rest I hated which for me is a big thing to say because I don't like to be overly mean. I think some of these stories were chosen because of the authors' previous publication or name or success. The worst one was Manhattan Dreaming.
August 12, 2021
One or two stories were mediocre, the rest were absolute trash. A few hours of my life I will never get back. I kept thinking the next one has to be better, spoiler alert: they don't get better, they actually get worse!
June 11, 2017
Interesting collection. Has been in a cupboard since 2009. As I get back into my own writing efforts and reading paper again I am finding short stories like breakfasts- short and sweet. Loads of variety.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews