Review
Incredibly lush, intelligent, seductive, Hershman’s collection reveals a marvelously varied repertoire of narrative styles and subjects that are so compelling, so deliciously readable, it’s impossible to finish one story without quickly beginning another. There is a double-genius at work here, a writer who is capable of seamlessly marrying the religion of physics to the twin sciences of loss and desire. Hershman possesses the rare scientific eye and accomplished literary sensibility of Bradbury, the wry clarity of Atwood. This collection is telescopic and rich, it puts down roots, it doesn’t leave you. (Sunshine O’Donnell, author of ‘Open Me’ )
Product Description
What links a café in Antarctica, a factory for producing electronic tracking tags and a casino where gamblers can wager their shoes? They're among the multiple venues where award-winning writer Tania Hershman sets her unique tales in this spellbinding debut collection.
Fleeing from tragedy, a bereaved mother opens a cafe on the road to the South Pole. A town which has always suffered extreme cold enjoys sudden warmth. A stranger starts plaiting a young woman's hair. A rabbi comes face to face with an angel in a car park. An elderly woman explains to her young carer what pregnancy used to mean before science took over. A middle-aged housewife overcomes a fear of technology to save her best friend. A desperate childless woman resorts to extreme measures to adopt. A young man's potential is instantly snuffed out by Nature's whims. A lonely widow bakes cakes in the shape of test tubes and DNA.
A number of these stories are inspired by articles from science magazines, taking fact as their starting points and wondering what might happen if . . .? In these surreal, lyrical stories, many of which are only a few pages long, Tania Hershman allows her imagination free reign, as her characters navigate through love, death, friendship, spirituality, mental illness and the havoc wreaked by the weather.
Fleeing from tragedy, a bereaved mother opens a cafe on the road to the South Pole. A town which has always suffered extreme cold enjoys sudden warmth. A stranger starts plaiting a young woman's hair. A rabbi comes face to face with an angel in a car park. An elderly woman explains to her young carer what pregnancy used to mean before science took over. A middle-aged housewife overcomes a fear of technology to save her best friend. A desperate childless woman resorts to extreme measures to adopt. A young man's potential is instantly snuffed out by Nature's whims. A lonely widow bakes cakes in the shape of test tubes and DNA.
A number of these stories are inspired by articles from science magazines, taking fact as their starting points and wondering what might happen if . . .? In these surreal, lyrical stories, many of which are only a few pages long, Tania Hershman allows her imagination free reign, as her characters navigate through love, death, friendship, spirituality, mental illness and the havoc wreaked by the weather.
About the Author
Meeting Tania Hershman, many people find it hard to believe that she studied Maths and Physics rather than English at University. But Tania is just as happy discussing electrons, protons, quarks and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as she is chatting about the latest short story collections being published.
When she began her University studies, Tania assumed she was heading towards a career in the lab. But, after proving to be hopeless at experiments – and finding reporting for the college newspaper far more enjoyable – it became clear that writing was Tania's true calling. Science journalism was the natural next step.
After moving to Jerusalem, Israel, in 1994, “just as peace looked like it was breaking out”, for 13 years she reported on Israeli scientific and technological innovations for English-language journals in Israel, the UK and America. “Everyone I met was excited and optimistic; they thought they were going to change the world,” Tania says. “Some, like ICQ, who invented instant messaging, actually did!”
However interesting she found her work, journalism wasn't the kind of writing Tania really wanted to be doing. Over time, she returned to her first love, fiction, and began writing short stories and attending fiction workshops in the US and the UK. In 2003, she returned to England to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and realised that there was no looking back.
The selection of her short story, The White Road, for broadcast on BBC Radio 4 gave Tania the impetus she needed to take herself seriously as a writer. She set up a writing group in Israel, joined several online communities, and began writing regularly and submitting her stories to competitions, literary journals and websites.
After a number of her stories were published, and she won and was shortlisted for several contests, Tania decided the time had come to change her business card from “journalist” to “writer”. She printed new cards, redesigned her website, and began to do, full-time, what she had wanted to do since she was 6. “I couldn't be happier,” she says.
After her first collection was accepted by Salt Publishing, Tania looked around for possible opportunities for reviews, and saw to her dismay that short story collections get far less attention than novels. She decided to do her part to redress the balance. In November 2007 she founded The Short Review, a website dedicated to reviewing short story collections and anthologies. The positive response to her iniative was overwhelming, and Tania now has thirty reviewers covering as wide variety of genres as possible for the monthly publication. “I am not trying to sell books, just attempting to help people find something to read – and making sure that short stories are part of that ‘something'!” The site gets hundreds of hits every week.
Minmizing harm to the environment is very important to Tania and her partner, James, who try to live a “green” lifestyle. Tania was concerned about the impact of her own collection, so she is thrilled to be partnering with Eco-Libris, a company who offer readers a way to “balance out” the destruction of the trees to make the books on their shelves. Eco-Libris will plant a tree for every copy of Tania's book that is printed.
Tania's newest love is flash fiction – very short stories, under 500 words – and she is now working on her second collection, of short short stories.
When she began her University studies, Tania assumed she was heading towards a career in the lab. But, after proving to be hopeless at experiments – and finding reporting for the college newspaper far more enjoyable – it became clear that writing was Tania's true calling. Science journalism was the natural next step.
After moving to Jerusalem, Israel, in 1994, “just as peace looked like it was breaking out”, for 13 years she reported on Israeli scientific and technological innovations for English-language journals in Israel, the UK and America. “Everyone I met was excited and optimistic; they thought they were going to change the world,” Tania says. “Some, like ICQ, who invented instant messaging, actually did!”
However interesting she found her work, journalism wasn't the kind of writing Tania really wanted to be doing. Over time, she returned to her first love, fiction, and began writing short stories and attending fiction workshops in the US and the UK. In 2003, she returned to England to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and realised that there was no looking back.
The selection of her short story, The White Road, for broadcast on BBC Radio 4 gave Tania the impetus she needed to take herself seriously as a writer. She set up a writing group in Israel, joined several online communities, and began writing regularly and submitting her stories to competitions, literary journals and websites.
After a number of her stories were published, and she won and was shortlisted for several contests, Tania decided the time had come to change her business card from “journalist” to “writer”. She printed new cards, redesigned her website, and began to do, full-time, what she had wanted to do since she was 6. “I couldn't be happier,” she says.
After her first collection was accepted by Salt Publishing, Tania looked around for possible opportunities for reviews, and saw to her dismay that short story collections get far less attention than novels. She decided to do her part to redress the balance. In November 2007 she founded The Short Review, a website dedicated to reviewing short story collections and anthologies. The positive response to her iniative was overwhelming, and Tania now has thirty reviewers covering as wide variety of genres as possible for the monthly publication. “I am not trying to sell books, just attempting to help people find something to read – and making sure that short stories are part of that ‘something'!” The site gets hundreds of hits every week.
Minmizing harm to the environment is very important to Tania and her partner, James, who try to live a “green” lifestyle. Tania was concerned about the impact of her own collection, so she is thrilled to be partnering with Eco-Libris, a company who offer readers a way to “balance out” the destruction of the trees to make the books on their shelves. Eco-Libris will plant a tree for every copy of Tania's book that is printed.
Tania's newest love is flash fiction – very short stories, under 500 words – and she is now working on her second collection, of short short stories.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The White Road
What’s long, white, and very, very cold? The road to the South Pole is nearing completion … this road will stretch for more than 1600 kilometres across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world.
—’The Highway at the End of the World’ New Scientist, 7 February 2004
Today is one of them really and truly cold days. You’re probably thinking cold is cold is cold, either everything’s frosty or you’re sipping margaritas by the pool in Florida, but let me tell you, there are degrees of freezing. New York got pretty cold in the wintertime, especially for a southern gal. But all the way down here by the Pole, Antarctic minus forty ain’t the same as Antarctic minus twenty-five. You need damn hot coffee in both, that’s true, you got me there, but there’s a different smell to the air, believe me. When I open up for business in the morning of a minus forty, I stand on the doorstep and sniff, with Fluff beside me. I say, Fluff, it’s a damn cold one today and she barks, clever damn dog. Then I turn the sign from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’ and set the water boiling for the first lot, who won’t be too far down the White Road.
That’s what we call it, because that’s what it is, all white. Some days, you’ve got to wear those special glasses that they gave out on the Induction Day. Two pairs, in case one got broke. They said, Don’t look at that snow when it’s sunshining or we’ll be putting the patch over your eyes, and that’ll be enough seeing for you.
Some things the eye shouldn’t see. No, some things are just too much for it.
Last Wednesday was one of them sunny days they were talking about. It was a real busy morning. I saw the first ants coming down the road around seven am. That’s what I call them, Ants, ‘cause that’s what they are at first. I’m looking out through my big glass windows, the ones with the special coating on so they never freeze or get misty with all the heat inside. It’s like you’re watching a big white TV screen, it’s all nothing, nothing, nothing — and then, sudden like, little dots appear: the Ants. They get bigger and bigger, and soon you see them, heading straight for me and my coffee machine. Big red trucks, with all their fancy equipment they carry to the research guys at the Pole a couple of miles past us.
It’s probably Phil and Eric, I was thinking, and yeah, they pulled up and stomped in through the snow, stamping their big feet all over the floor, rubbing their hands.
‘Whassup, Mags,’ shouts one of them, Eric or Phil, never could quite tell the difference.
‘Cold, boys?’ I ask, same as I always do on a Wednesday when they make their run.
‘Freeze ya soon as look at ya,’ says the other one, getting stuck trying to pull his snow jacket over his big head.
‘Coffee?’ I say.
‘You’re the best, Mags,’ they say together, and while they’re arranging themselves in a booth, I start the pouring and bring over the cups and a couple of menus.
When I first started, half a year ago, it was quiet; everybody was just wanting to speed down that White Road and get to where it was they were going. But then slowly, they take notice of me and Fluff and our little sign for ‘Last Stop Coffee’, and they start coming in and making our acquaintance. They find us pretty friendly, the coffee’s hot and not too bad, and I make the best damn scrambled in about a thousand white miles. I add things to my menu now and again, depending on the supplies I get through once a month when Les brings me a truckload. Sometimes it’s fruit he brings me, he got hold of a box of mangos once and you should’ve heard how everyone was over my mango and sweet potato pie, they just loved it. Sometimes it’s nothing more exciting than a whole truckload of tuna and I get to see all the different dishes I can make out of that. I can get pretty inventive with what Les hauls down here. I always was good in the kitchen, my kids’ll tell you that, if you can find them. The one who’s gone, he loved my scrambled the most. Ate it before it touched the plate, I used to say.
Back to last Wednesday. ‘What’ll it be,’ I’m asking Phil and Eric. They umm and ahh and stare at the menus like they ain’t never seen them before, like this ain’t the only place for hundreds of miles and they haven’t been coming here and eating my food once a week for I don’t know how long.
I love doing this, chatting and feeding the hungry. In between one lot and another, Fluff and I’ll sit down for a breather, me with my thirty-third coffee of the day most probably, and we’ll stare out into the white. You could get lost in all that white. I never knew an outside could look so clean. I thought before I got here that I would miss the colours, the greens and the blues, the yellows and the browns. Not red. I would never miss red.
But I don’t miss a thing.
In the evenings we’ll watch the TV. We get so many stations on that satellite, my fingers hurt from all that channel-spinning. Fluff’ll bark if I do it too much, gives her a headache. She barks and I stop right there on that channel and we watch some soap opera with guys with square chins and names like ‘Ridge’, or a bit of the news from the real world, all them disasters and stuff. Then we hit the hay, early to most folks, but we get up when the sun does. I don’t mind it, I always was an early bird. Don’t want to waste your life, I told my young ‘uns, but they didn’t listen. Never do. Then, before you know it, it’s too late.
Phil, or maybe it’s Eric, asks for waffles and maple syrup, and the other one wants toast and jam, and they both drink the coffee like it’s coming off the trees tomorrow and that’s the end of it.
So I go back into the kitchen and set about it. I stand in front of the toaster and I close my eyes. I reach with my left hand and feel about on the counter top until I find the bread bag. I grab it and take out two slices with my right, put the bag down, trying to picture in my head where it is, and feel over to the toaster. Toast goes in first time! It’s because I’ve been practicing. For about two months, I’ve been practicing with my eyes closed, a little every day. Now I can do it. I know where everything is.
It was hard at first. I dropped things, I cheated and opened my eyes to clean up eggs and stuff that slid through my fingers. I put the grill on the wrong settings, nearly burned us down, or left things so raw they could walk. But now I got it down, I can do it.
I take Phil and Eric their food, and while they dig in, I sit at the next table and we chat for a bit.
‘We got two tons of gloves today,’ they say. ‘I don’t know what they do down there, all those rubber gloves. Boxes and boxes of them. Some cutting up of stuff, I bet.’
‘What else you got,’ I ask, sipping my coffee.
‘The week’s newspapers, like always,’ they say. ‘Bit old now, but they get so excited when we come in. Doc Baxter, he does all the crosswords. Those guys, they’re real smart.’
‘They’re doing important work,’ I say. ‘Got to have someone in these out of the way places, learning about what’s going on, increasing the world’s know-how, don’t you?’
They nod at me, grin, stuff food in their mouths. Few minutes later, they’re pulling their layers back on, paying the cheque, and out the door.
The rest of Wednesday morning people are streaming in: different delivery guys, like always, some regulars, some new, all needing serious coffee. And something special: a group of young scientists on their way for a visit to the Pole. One of the boys, he looks so much like … I have to stop myself going over and saying, Hey . . .
That’s when I know. It’s a sign. This is the day.
The afternoon was quiet. Anyone who comes down here comes through real early, in case the weather starts with its howling and rough stuff. The sun was out, it’s one of them days they told me about. Dazzling, spreading light all over the white.
‘It’s time,’ I say to Fluff. She’s real quiet, smart dog. I put on my glasses, snap on her leash, open the door and we step out.
It still amazes me, like it did the first time. I don’t think a body would ever get used to it, the soft clean cotton-wool of it all, stretching on and on and on. The road don’t cut through it, it’s part of it, just flattened out a bit. A different white, a little dirty from the cars, but not so that it gets in the way of the beautifulness of it all. I cried the first day I got here. It was like I thought peace would be.
Fluff is stood by me, her head resting next to my knee. I move a few steps towards the sun, making sure I know where the door is that I just came out of.
‘It’s OK,’ I say to her. ‘We can do this. It’ll still be me. You know that.’ I bend down, take hold of her leash, and straighten up. Then I take off my glasses.
At first I see everything so sharp. The white looks like gold. My eyes see little bits of gold shining all over the ground, and then it starts moving, like fishes swimming in and out of my head. Then the blurring begins. I’m dizzy, there’s a pain behind my eyes, but I keep on staring. I’m not going to shut them until it’s done.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Slowly, slowly, someone is dropping a cloth over me and this mist comes down in front of my eyes.
Then it’s all over. And it’s all just white.
What’s long, white, and very, very cold? The road to the South Pole is nearing completion … this road will stretch for more than 1600 kilometres across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world.
—’The Highway at the End of the World’ New Scientist, 7 February 2004
Today is one of them really and truly cold days. You’re probably thinking cold is cold is cold, either everything’s frosty or you’re sipping margaritas by the pool in Florida, but let me tell you, there are degrees of freezing. New York got pretty cold in the wintertime, especially for a southern gal. But all the way down here by the Pole, Antarctic minus forty ain’t the same as Antarctic minus twenty-five. You need damn hot coffee in both, that’s true, you got me there, but there’s a different smell to the air, believe me. When I open up for business in the morning of a minus forty, I stand on the doorstep and sniff, with Fluff beside me. I say, Fluff, it’s a damn cold one today and she barks, clever damn dog. Then I turn the sign from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’ and set the water boiling for the first lot, who won’t be too far down the White Road.
That’s what we call it, because that’s what it is, all white. Some days, you’ve got to wear those special glasses that they gave out on the Induction Day. Two pairs, in case one got broke. They said, Don’t look at that snow when it’s sunshining or we’ll be putting the patch over your eyes, and that’ll be enough seeing for you.
Some things the eye shouldn’t see. No, some things are just too much for it.
Last Wednesday was one of them sunny days they were talking about. It was a real busy morning. I saw the first ants coming down the road around seven am. That’s what I call them, Ants, ‘cause that’s what they are at first. I’m looking out through my big glass windows, the ones with the special coating on so they never freeze or get misty with all the heat inside. It’s like you’re watching a big white TV screen, it’s all nothing, nothing, nothing — and then, sudden like, little dots appear: the Ants. They get bigger and bigger, and soon you see them, heading straight for me and my coffee machine. Big red trucks, with all their fancy equipment they carry to the research guys at the Pole a couple of miles past us.
It’s probably Phil and Eric, I was thinking, and yeah, they pulled up and stomped in through the snow, stamping their big feet all over the floor, rubbing their hands.
‘Whassup, Mags,’ shouts one of them, Eric or Phil, never could quite tell the difference.
‘Cold, boys?’ I ask, same as I always do on a Wednesday when they make their run.
‘Freeze ya soon as look at ya,’ says the other one, getting stuck trying to pull his snow jacket over his big head.
‘Coffee?’ I say.
‘You’re the best, Mags,’ they say together, and while they’re arranging themselves in a booth, I start the pouring and bring over the cups and a couple of menus.
When I first started, half a year ago, it was quiet; everybody was just wanting to speed down that White Road and get to where it was they were going. But then slowly, they take notice of me and Fluff and our little sign for ‘Last Stop Coffee’, and they start coming in and making our acquaintance. They find us pretty friendly, the coffee’s hot and not too bad, and I make the best damn scrambled in about a thousand white miles. I add things to my menu now and again, depending on the supplies I get through once a month when Les brings me a truckload. Sometimes it’s fruit he brings me, he got hold of a box of mangos once and you should’ve heard how everyone was over my mango and sweet potato pie, they just loved it. Sometimes it’s nothing more exciting than a whole truckload of tuna and I get to see all the different dishes I can make out of that. I can get pretty inventive with what Les hauls down here. I always was good in the kitchen, my kids’ll tell you that, if you can find them. The one who’s gone, he loved my scrambled the most. Ate it before it touched the plate, I used to say.
Back to last Wednesday. ‘What’ll it be,’ I’m asking Phil and Eric. They umm and ahh and stare at the menus like they ain’t never seen them before, like this ain’t the only place for hundreds of miles and they haven’t been coming here and eating my food once a week for I don’t know how long.
I love doing this, chatting and feeding the hungry. In between one lot and another, Fluff and I’ll sit down for a breather, me with my thirty-third coffee of the day most probably, and we’ll stare out into the white. You could get lost in all that white. I never knew an outside could look so clean. I thought before I got here that I would miss the colours, the greens and the blues, the yellows and the browns. Not red. I would never miss red.
But I don’t miss a thing.
In the evenings we’ll watch the TV. We get so many stations on that satellite, my fingers hurt from all that channel-spinning. Fluff’ll bark if I do it too much, gives her a headache. She barks and I stop right there on that channel and we watch some soap opera with guys with square chins and names like ‘Ridge’, or a bit of the news from the real world, all them disasters and stuff. Then we hit the hay, early to most folks, but we get up when the sun does. I don’t mind it, I always was an early bird. Don’t want to waste your life, I told my young ‘uns, but they didn’t listen. Never do. Then, before you know it, it’s too late.
Phil, or maybe it’s Eric, asks for waffles and maple syrup, and the other one wants toast and jam, and they both drink the coffee like it’s coming off the trees tomorrow and that’s the end of it.
So I go back into the kitchen and set about it. I stand in front of the toaster and I close my eyes. I reach with my left hand and feel about on the counter top until I find the bread bag. I grab it and take out two slices with my right, put the bag down, trying to picture in my head where it is, and feel over to the toaster. Toast goes in first time! It’s because I’ve been practicing. For about two months, I’ve been practicing with my eyes closed, a little every day. Now I can do it. I know where everything is.
It was hard at first. I dropped things, I cheated and opened my eyes to clean up eggs and stuff that slid through my fingers. I put the grill on the wrong settings, nearly burned us down, or left things so raw they could walk. But now I got it down, I can do it.
I take Phil and Eric their food, and while they dig in, I sit at the next table and we chat for a bit.
‘We got two tons of gloves today,’ they say. ‘I don’t know what they do down there, all those rubber gloves. Boxes and boxes of them. Some cutting up of stuff, I bet.’
‘What else you got,’ I ask, sipping my coffee.
‘The week’s newspapers, like always,’ they say. ‘Bit old now, but they get so excited when we come in. Doc Baxter, he does all the crosswords. Those guys, they’re real smart.’
‘They’re doing important work,’ I say. ‘Got to have someone in these out of the way places, learning about what’s going on, increasing the world’s know-how, don’t you?’
They nod at me, grin, stuff food in their mouths. Few minutes later, they’re pulling their layers back on, paying the cheque, and out the door.
The rest of Wednesday morning people are streaming in: different delivery guys, like always, some regulars, some new, all needing serious coffee. And something special: a group of young scientists on their way for a visit to the Pole. One of the boys, he looks so much like … I have to stop myself going over and saying, Hey . . .
That’s when I know. It’s a sign. This is the day.
The afternoon was quiet. Anyone who comes down here comes through real early, in case the weather starts with its howling and rough stuff. The sun was out, it’s one of them days they told me about. Dazzling, spreading light all over the white.
‘It’s time,’ I say to Fluff. She’s real quiet, smart dog. I put on my glasses, snap on her leash, open the door and we step out.
It still amazes me, like it did the first time. I don’t think a body would ever get used to it, the soft clean cotton-wool of it all, stretching on and on and on. The road don’t cut through it, it’s part of it, just flattened out a bit. A different white, a little dirty from the cars, but not so that it gets in the way of the beautifulness of it all. I cried the first day I got here. It was like I thought peace would be.
Fluff is stood by me, her head resting next to my knee. I move a few steps towards the sun, making sure I know where the door is that I just came out of.
‘It’s OK,’ I say to her. ‘We can do this. It’ll still be me. You know that.’ I bend down, take hold of her leash, and straighten up. Then I take off my glasses.
At first I see everything so sharp. The white looks like gold. My eyes see little bits of gold shining all over the ground, and then it starts moving, like fishes swimming in and out of my head. Then the blurring begins. I’m dizzy, there’s a pain behind my eyes, but I keep on staring. I’m not going to shut them until it’s done.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Slowly, slowly, someone is dropping a cloth over me and this mist comes down in front of my eyes.
Then it’s all over. And it’s all just white.
