I would love to have
some more Nocturnes from Kazuo
Ishiguro, certain stories from Heavy
Water are among the best things Martin Amis has written, and Will Self’s Grey Area has never left my writing desk
(lest I forget just how good “Between The Conceits” is). It’s a shame that a
short story is merely a distraction for an established author.
So much so that you really
have to be a dreamer. Thankfully, there’s one such dreamer in America, and his
new collection of stories (published a month ago) is as good a book as I’ve
read this year. The man knows a short cut to a nightmare you wish to see. And
when he writes like Raymond Carver (no shame in that; there isn’t a better
short story writer than Raymond Carver), he still ends up writing like Stephen King. Which
pays off: The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams is
escapism of the highest order.
