- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Hot Kitchen Snow (Salt Modern Fiction) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Susannah Rickards conjures with the peculiar truths of different human lives, and creates stories which are wry, compassionate, moving and often very funny. (Emma Darwin, author of Mathematics of Love and A Secret Alchemy )
Product Description
Typically we lie to each other four times a day and the commonest lie told is, ‘I’m fine.’ The characters in Hot Kitchen Snow go one step further: they lie to themselves.
This collection explores the gap between how others see us and how we see ourselves. Teenage Euan is guest of honour at a mystery funeral; door-to-door dog-food seller Greg sets out to find the girl whose life he once saved, to lessen his sense of failure.
The tiny everyday decisions that account for some of life’s biggest developments are charted here, often represented by a charged scrap from nature: a fall of snow from a skylight reminds a city banker of everything he lacks in ‘Hot Kitchen Snow’, and in ‘Odissi Dancing’, scarlet chrysanthemums sewn into a fat college administrator’s hair assure her of what she never knew she had. Here the bad do good and the pious wreak havoc. No one is as they seem or as they think they are.
This collection explores the gap between how others see us and how we see ourselves. Teenage Euan is guest of honour at a mystery funeral; door-to-door dog-food seller Greg sets out to find the girl whose life he once saved, to lessen his sense of failure.
The tiny everyday decisions that account for some of life’s biggest developments are charted here, often represented by a charged scrap from nature: a fall of snow from a skylight reminds a city banker of everything he lacks in ‘Hot Kitchen Snow’, and in ‘Odissi Dancing’, scarlet chrysanthemums sewn into a fat college administrator’s hair assure her of what she never knew she had. Here the bad do good and the pious wreak havoc. No one is as they seem or as they think they are.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a collection of short stories (pub. Salt 2010) and ever since Joyce, the one thing we've known about a short story is that it should have an epiphany: ie, at some point something should become clear, either to us or to the protagonist, that wasn't clear before, and that changes everything. One of the most interesting things about these stories is the way Rickards sometimes subverts the epiphany, by subtly implying that though the protagonist has indeed found out something new about himself or the world, this new-found knowledge is not in fact going to change anything; things will go on much as they did before. In the title story, the materialistic Dominic finds himself having fun in a way totally independent of the money and social cachet on which he generally depends for enjoyment, but you could lay bets that he will not, next morning, sell all he has and give the money to the poor. In "Mango", a failing marriage, seen through a child's eyes, gets a sudden boost of happiness and all seems well at the end, but an adult reader can easily deduce that the respite is temporary and does not address the real problems in the relationship. And in "The Last of Her", Jo, having been welcomed at a vulnerable time into the home of what seems a kind couple, has to reassess them in the light of their conduct to someone else, but again you could bet she is not going to walk virtuously out on the comfort she needs.
Sometimes Rickards does use the epiphany in a more traditional way; in "Odissi Dancing" it does feel as if a woman's self-image has been permanently altered, and in "Ultimate Satisfaction Everyday", Greg, who's always thought of himself as a loser, finds out not so much that he is or isn't, more that nobody has the right to make such a judgement about what anybody's life is "worth". In "Life Pirates" there are practically two stories running in tandem, the one most people see, involving a drunken tramp in a park, and the quite different one seen by the narrator, who knows him.
There are a few stories that don't work for me, notably "Moon" which I don't see the point of and "Moleman" in which the tempting metaphor in a real situation has completely taken over the story to the point where it reads like an exercise. But as a collection, this is massively more worth reading than some considerably more hyped ones I've read lately. Where these stories end happily or at least in temporary contentment, it is often because of some apparently trivial thing: the taste of a mango, the gift of some dog biscuits, the budding of an apparently dead tree, can be enough to turn a situation, a mood, even a way of seeing the world.
Sometimes Rickards does use the epiphany in a more traditional way; in "Odissi Dancing" it does feel as if a woman's self-image has been permanently altered, and in "Ultimate Satisfaction Everyday", Greg, who's always thought of himself as a loser, finds out not so much that he is or isn't, more that nobody has the right to make such a judgement about what anybody's life is "worth". In "Life Pirates" there are practically two stories running in tandem, the one most people see, involving a drunken tramp in a park, and the quite different one seen by the narrator, who knows him.
There are a few stories that don't work for me, notably "Moon" which I don't see the point of and "Moleman" in which the tempting metaphor in a real situation has completely taken over the story to the point where it reads like an exercise. But as a collection, this is massively more worth reading than some considerably more hyped ones I've read lately. Where these stories end happily or at least in temporary contentment, it is often because of some apparently trivial thing: the taste of a mango, the gift of some dog biscuits, the budding of an apparently dead tree, can be enough to turn a situation, a mood, even a way of seeing the world.
Format:Paperback
This is a virtuoso collection of stories in which Rickards runs the gamut of emotions and experiences, tripping from one life to another, from one continent to another, with confidence, ease and insight. She has a subtle hand and a deep, warm compassion for the human condition. In a tiny space, sometimes little more than a few paragraphs, she entices us into the lives of her fully-wrought characters, and shows us what makes them tick. The stories are moving, uplifting, and yet unflinching. This is a writer from whom I hope we shall hear more.
Format:Paperback
Beautifully crafted stories that delight and startle. I have admired Susannah Rickard's writing for the last few years, and am glad to see it in her own collection.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Small worlds which live and breathe all of themselves
On the cover of Susannah Rickards's prize-winning collection I said that she conjures with the peculiar truths of different human lives, and creates stories which are wry,... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Emma Darwin
A wonderful collection...
Each one of these beautifully crafted short stories creates an entire world of its own and holds the reader in its spell. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Essie Fox
First-class collection
Excellent award-winning debut short story collection. Like all the best short stories, these miniatures show lives in transition - states of being or states of awareness shifting. Read more
Published 18 months ago by London Spy
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
