Lying In Bed

by Polly Samson

Do you cover up or reveal it all; seek revenge or just reassurance; let the truth be naked as the day or cloaked in a night-time story? The men and women of Polly Samson's debut fiction all have stories to tell, pasts to forget, futures to forge. Manipulative or meek, used or using, all are aware of the power of truth, deception and little white lies to get what they want or sometimes what they deserve. Some are concerned with the economies of speech, those little 'kindnesses' which protect our loved ones but really ourselves; some investigate the warped logic which adults serve out to children to keep them 'innocent'; all are concerned with the beds we make and the lies we tell in them. . .

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

213 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Polly Samson is the author of three novels and two collections of short stories. Her most recent novel, A Theatre for Dreamers, reached number 2 in The Sunday Times bestsellers list and she has written introductions to new editions of Charmian Clift's Mermaid Singing and Peel Me A Lotus which will be published in April 2021.

Reviews

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short collection of short stories wasn’t short of drama, it just was subjectively not really the kind of fiction I’m that keen on. Focussing on mainly damaged women - wives and mothers - and their thought processes, I just found the protagonists all a bit unpleasant and nasty in generally similar ways, for all that the details of each tale differed. A number of the stories just ended without a particularly strong resolution (which started to feel more like laziness on behalf of the author, as opposed to a stylistic choice) and I’m not sure if the male characters were weakly written ‘to be weak’ or if they just weren’t well defined. Nevertheless, some thought-provoking moments for all that this ended up a bit hit and miss.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were good, some less so. Overall they felt quite formulaic. The endings often read like predictable punchlines in stale jokes. I didn't really like any of Samson's characters which never helps. Although I did like the dark heart in most of the stories. The high point for me was where we revisited characters in later stories. That gave an additional strength, cohesion and reason for me to keep reading.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.
These short stories are so beautifully constructed, the characters are dimensional, the endings... Basically, Polly Samson is incredible, go read this, you won't regret it!

[Kathleen Jowitt]

A collection of short stories. Some were more effective than others - the ones with twist endings tended to be a bit predictable (and I would quite happily have read 'The Right Woman For The Job' as a revenge fantasy, but that would have needed it to have been written by a different author, I think). The ones that worked best were the ones that took us inside people's heads - which wasn't necessarily a pleasant experience, but was a very believable one.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories features a surfeit of twists and turns, unexpected details, and delightfully vivid descriptions of fantastically real, humanly-flawed characters. There haven't been very many books that have prompted me to stay up FAR too late on a school night and been worth the effort, but this is one of them. Even when I finished a story and thought "alright, this is a good place to stop for the night," it didn't take much for me to quickly change my mind to "well, one more won't hurt." Before I knew it, this incredibly addictive book had eaten up most of my night, and I reluctantly finally put it down at a very late hour indeed. Before I'd even reached the halfway point of the book, it had secured a place on my list of favorites. I look forward to re-reading this one time and again. I'm reluctant to loan my copy out, for fear that it might not come back after hooking another reader like it hooked me!

Second read, December 2016: perfect book to close out the year (and my Goodreads challenge) with :-)