What Fear Was

by Ben Walter

From vanishing islands to talking flathead and nightmarish bushfires, Ben Walter’s visionary Tasmanian fictions are unique in the landscape of Australian writing. An unemployed man chooses only to apply for jobs advertised in The Economist; a failed mountain expedition is mocked by the dead bodies of past climbers; and a father and son travel urgently to witness the miracle of Lake Pedder emptying. In What Fear Was, Walter combines beautiful, mesmerising writing with surreal discomfort and absurdist hilarity to completely upend the idea of an Australian short story.

'Lyrical and inventive, savage and strange. You’ve never read anyone like Ben Walter. Total mastery of language and imagery, paired with an unrivalled imagination and immense storytelling chutzpah. The shot in the arm Australian literature has been screaming for.' – Robbie Arnott

'With its unforgettable descriptions of the natural world, and the unsettling things that sometimes take place there, What Fear Was is an extraordinary collection of stories. Deeply strange, beautifully lyrical and intensely moving; no one in Australia writes like Ben Walter. The weird realism of What Fear Was is wholly unique and deeply valuable in contemporary Australian fiction.' – Ryan O’Neill.

'What Fear Was is a darkly funny, surreal and tender collection, wonderfully Tasmanian in its entanglements. You never know where Ben Walter's stories will take you - there are no straight lines here - but it's truly a pleasure to follow his trail.' – Jennifer Mills

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

163 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 5, 2022

About the author

Ben Walter’s poetry, fiction and essays have been widely published in Australian journals, including Meanjin, Island, Overland and The Lifted Brow. His debut novel manuscript won the people’s choice category in the 2017 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards.

Reviews

[Ruairi Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging and fun read. Walter has a playful approach to language and form. Like Robbie Arnott (who provides one of the book’s testimonials), he writes exceptionally well about nature, in particular landscape. I enjoyed the absurd stories the most: ‘The Economist’, ‘All hollows’, ‘The slide’ and ‘The day the music died’ were a lovely blend of humour and pathos. Walter isn’t above making fun of himself, as in ‘The anti-glacier book’, and the collection also features the excellent ‘Conglomerate’, a more conventional story about friendship and grief. There’s a lovely provincial moment in ‘Landscapes within landscapes’, where a character faces judgment before Nature, and one of the judges, after praising the virtues of mud, says, ‘Do you curse this mud … sidling it as a coward, or do you trudge straight through and drown your blind steps? Would you bury yourself in this mud, your body beneath its clotted skin?’—well, any self-respecting Tasmanian knows you plough straight through and get buried. This is a fine collection of stories, well worth a read.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Walter tackles the natural world in Australia, the effects and anxiety of climate change, the dominance of time and history, in a dark and surreal way with experimental writing and an over-the-top imagination.

[Rod Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read short stories, much less collections of them. I’m really glad to read this though- featuring some of the best writing I’ve ever read. I’m not a great fan of magic realism and there’s not too much of that. Indeed I think the best are those that deal with the real experience of bushwalking. A very talented writer!

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a reason Ben Walter's short stories are so frequently published - he's a bloody good writer. This collection is strange, heartbreaking, funny, frightening, uplifting and challenging, and very much worth your while. If you are even slightly interested in mountains, walking, cricket, nature-in-general or absurdity, have a read of this.