Status Updates From The Collected Stories of Mu...

Finished ‘you should have seen the mess’ so so

I finished ‘Daisy Overend’ a scathing portrayal of a self important society lady. I think she maybe skewering Marie Stopes who hounded Muriel out of the editorship of the Poetry Review.

Finished ‘The Leaf-Sweeper’ Johnny the leaf sweeper wants to abolish Xmas! Love it

Finished ‘A Sad tale’s my best for winter’ and it has a ballad feel which according to France’s Wilson Spark’s most recent biographer was a big influence on Spark, the southern Scottish ballads.

Finished ‘Miss Pinkerton’s Apocalypse’ which is very short very simple and very sharp. A flying saucer as a bode China. Definitely not a fake!

Finished ‘The Pawnbrokers Wife.’ Interesting character portrait but bit about the compass heavy handed

Finished ‘The Playhouse called Remarkable’ which is about a group of moon inhabitants who worship on earth and lose their lead female player. Meh

I just read the twins and didn’t get it

Finished the seraph and the zambesi - her breakthrough prize winning short story

Finished ‘Bang bang your dead’ captures Sparks anger and resentment at men - both her husband who didn’t get killed in Africa or in war and the third rate pompous poets when she was editor of the Poetry review.

In the middle of ‘Bang bang you’re dead.’

Finished Black Madonna - interesting take on white fragility- UK 1950s style

Finished Curtain Blown by the Breeze, so so - too serious- not the usual Spark wit.

The Dark Glasses - 4.5 stars