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Licensed Premises
'Nobody believes what they see on TV, so they want to look for something else, an alternate reality, or a conspiracy theory, and it's interesting to explore it, Twitter is fucking full of it, especially now. It's no wonder people round here are into it, but you don't have to read all that shit, just have some mushrooms and wander round Lidl off your tits.'
In these fourteen northern tales, Campbell takes us from the edgelands of Manchester to the cloistered villages of The Peak District, Northumberland and Scotland, and illuminates the lives of outsiders, misfits, loners and malcontents with an eye for the darkly comic. A wild-eyed man disturbs the banter in a genial bookshop. A fraught woman seeks to flee a collapsing reservoir. A failed academic finds solace in a crime writer's favourite pub. A transit van killer stalks a railway footpath. A poet accused of plagiarism finds his life falling apart.
In these fourteen northern tales, Campbell takes us from the edgelands of Manchester to the cloistered villages of The Peak District, Northumberland and Scotland, and illuminates the lives of outsiders, misfits, loners and malcontents with an eye for the darkly comic. A wild-eyed man disturbs the banter in a genial bookshop. A fraught woman seeks to flee a collapsing reservoir. A failed academic finds solace in a crime writer's favourite pub. A transit van killer stalks a railway footpath. A poet accused of plagiarism finds his life falling apart.
- GenresFiction
143 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2022
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2023
Add this book to 'authors I found on Twitter' and once again it's been a real hit with me. Neil Campbell's short story collection is a bit of a delight to read. It took me a while to get into it but once I had I really enjoyed reading these stories of individuals who in different ways exist somewhat on a margin. There are a number of themes that crop up in the selection which seem to unify the book somewhat. Most of the stories seem to be set within the commuter belt of Manchester, yet very much in the rural Pennines or maybe the Peak District in the west of Derbyshire. I always got the sense the city was close as a presence, but not visible, never to near. The bulk of the stories set in a rural village landscape close to A roads, near the city, but never part of it.
Most of the stories work quite well. Some at the start of the collection appear to be a little harder to engage with than the latter - maybe that was because I was connecting to the writing style of the author. Birds quietly watching the actions of humans is a theme throughout. It can feel a little unsettling at times, seeing as most of the protagonists of the stories are failing, lonely, again at the margins as the birds just watch. For some of the stories the reader very much has to interpret what is happening which may work for some.
Some of the more interesting stories centre around bookshops (I still can't quite work out if it is the same bookshop in every story or variations of the same) and the people who work in them. I enjoyed exploring the sense of buying in bookshops dying out, of minimum wage employees doing all they can to stave off boredom and exploit a few benefits, of the people popping in and out and how they engaged with the shop and it's staff. Part of me feels I could read a whole book like that.
There are stories of 'arty' types and their connection to a wider world, and one of my favourites was a story about a poet who plagiarises, flipping our expectations somewhat as to who the villain of the piece may be (I loved this element, seeing as most of us rarely have an original thought and are only ever influenced by others). The only story that I couldn't take to was one about a child murderer - the story was written in the same style as the others and it felt really jarring, reading about the failings, and the mundane elements that made up this killer's life. I think it jarred because I could generally empathise with all the characters of each story - even if some were deeply flawed (indeed, reading between the lines some of the others could have done some pretty bad stuff). Seeing quite a few reviews describing this book as darkly funny. I picked up the darkness, the loneliness, the longing and the frustration but I rarely thought the book was funny. Wry perhaps?
I still recommend the book, I enjoyed the threads through the collection and I think there is a voice here I would like to read much more of. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of Campbell's work.
Most of the stories work quite well. Some at the start of the collection appear to be a little harder to engage with than the latter - maybe that was because I was connecting to the writing style of the author. Birds quietly watching the actions of humans is a theme throughout. It can feel a little unsettling at times, seeing as most of the protagonists of the stories are failing, lonely, again at the margins as the birds just watch. For some of the stories the reader very much has to interpret what is happening which may work for some.
Some of the more interesting stories centre around bookshops (I still can't quite work out if it is the same bookshop in every story or variations of the same) and the people who work in them. I enjoyed exploring the sense of buying in bookshops dying out, of minimum wage employees doing all they can to stave off boredom and exploit a few benefits, of the people popping in and out and how they engaged with the shop and it's staff. Part of me feels I could read a whole book like that.
There are stories of 'arty' types and their connection to a wider world, and one of my favourites was a story about a poet who plagiarises, flipping our expectations somewhat as to who the villain of the piece may be (I loved this element, seeing as most of us rarely have an original thought and are only ever influenced by others). The only story that I couldn't take to was one about a child murderer - the story was written in the same style as the others and it felt really jarring, reading about the failings, and the mundane elements that made up this killer's life. I think it jarred because I could generally empathise with all the characters of each story - even if some were deeply flawed (indeed, reading between the lines some of the others could have done some pretty bad stuff). Seeing quite a few reviews describing this book as darkly funny. I picked up the darkness, the loneliness, the longing and the frustration but I rarely thought the book was funny. Wry perhaps?
I still recommend the book, I enjoyed the threads through the collection and I think there is a voice here I would like to read much more of. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of Campbell's work.
April 25, 2025
This is a collection of fourteen stories set in the North of England. The majority of them are in a very readable literary style with a down-to-earthness which sometimes felt too lightweight. Most of them carried an underlying sensation of things not-being-quite-right and in some cases this developed into a one-liner 'punch' that I felt to be out of place. However, there was also a disquieting appeal to this and I found myself in two minds whether I was enjoying them or not. A couple of the pieces - about a bookstore and setting up a magazine - certainly hit the right note for me (although even then, not unexpectedly). Overall, an enjoyable enough easy read but not carrying the depth I might have hoped for.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews