Why Don't You Stop Talking: Stories (Paperback)

Many of these stories mediate an uncertain boundary between the literal and the metaphorical, and much of their pleasure and challenge lies in this ambivalence. Kay's poetic voice is well suited to the short story form. This is the Jackie Kay of The Adoption Papers and Off Colour: serious, redemptive, forcing the consumer-sanitised reader to recognise the truly impoverished, traumatised reality around them. The heart-aching "In between talking about the elephant" is a particularly brilliant example of how fantasy enables people to survive the banal inevitability of the ordinary experience of death. Kay is good on the troubled relationships between teenagers and their parents and there are a number of lighter and energetically comical stories that add levity to the otherwise twilight tone of this collection. Why Don't You Stop Talking is a memorable collection about the pathology of everyday life. Through these stories, Kay fundamentally challenges and renders suspicious the notion that there are such beings as untroubled, ordinary people.--Rachel Holmes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis
Following on from her award-winning first novel, "Trumpet", comes a collection of superlative stories. In true Kay style, these small masterpieces cover a great deal of emotional and narrative terrain, from an immaculate observation of the female physiognomy to the bewilderment of the elderly; from silent hidden love to a lifetime reminiscence of an immigrant's England. Warm and tender, frightening and funny, these stories confirm the arrival of a major storyteller. "A stunner. I am heartbroken to have finished it" - Ali Smith. "The beauty of Kay's stories is in how much they continue to resonate long after finishing" - "Time Out". "These pieces contain - and ultimately liberate - definitively human ordinariness, a rigmarole of isolation and love, fidelity and betrayal, noise and silence, birth and death" - "Guardian". "One of the liveliest talents of her generation" - "Sunday Telegraph".