Dancing On the Outskirts by Shena Mackay
A wonderful collection of short stories by the doyenne of the form, a writer known for `the Mackay vision, suburban - as kitsch, as unexceptional, and yet as rich in history and wonder as a plain Victorian terrace house, its threshold radiant with tiling and stained-glass birds of paradise encased in leaded lights'- Guardian.
Mackay's new collection of short stories showcases her genius for building comedy from terseness and compression. . her precise, unsentimental images, integral to her stories' themes, sum up entire lives . . . A triumph! -- Michele Roberts * Independent *
A collection of exquisitely observed stories . . . Mackay will introduce us to the apparently trifling thoughts of a host of solitary characters and show us, with wonderful imaginative power, interior lives that are expansive, wondrous and tender. And even when her subjects are sad, the great power of her noticing, and her frequently piercing prose, transforms them into something vibrant and tender: her worlds are illuminated by glistening colours, busy wildlife, tactile skies, sibilant seas and responsive flowers. Mackay sees life in excruciatingly vigorous detail. Hers are lands in which it can feel as if everything is in bloom * Telegraph *
Shena Mackay's radiant short stories are skewering, funny and utterly original. Dancing on the Outskirts, a selection drawn from more than five decades of writing, was a high point of the year -- Susannah Clapp * Observer *
Shena Mackay is - as this collection of short stories confirms - a national treasure. Funny and sympathetic, she writes of forgotten poets and faded celebs, her magpie eye seizing delightedly on the tinsel and tat of lives that have passed their peak. Comic gems abound . . . the delight that they offer is, like Mackay's writing, continually fresh * The Lady *
A collection of exquisitely observed stories . . . Mackay will introduce us to the apparently trifling thoughts of a host of solitary characters and show us, with wonderful imaginative power, interior lives that are expansive, wondrous and tender. And even when her subjects are sad, the great power of her noticing, and her frequently piercing prose, transforms them into something vibrant and tender: her worlds are illuminated by glistening colours, busy wildlife, tactile skies, sibilant seas and responsive flowers. Mackay sees life in excruciatingly vigorous detail. Hers are lands in which it can feel as if everything is in bloom * Telegraph *
Shena Mackay's radiant short stories are skewering, funny and utterly original. Dancing on the Outskirts, a selection drawn from more than five decades of writing, was a high point of the year -- Susannah Clapp * Observer *
Shena Mackay is - as this collection of short stories confirms - a national treasure. Funny and sympathetic, she writes of forgotten poets and faded celebs, her magpie eye seizing delightedly on the tinsel and tat of lives that have passed their peak. Comic gems abound . . . the delight that they offer is, like Mackay's writing, continually fresh * The Lady *
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was fourteen. Two novellas, Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumberger and Toddler on the Run were published before she was twenty. Redhill Rococo won the 1987 Fawcett Prize, Dunedin won a 1994 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize and, in 2003, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Southampton.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780349007038 |
| ISBN 10 | 0349007039 |
| Title | Dancing On the Outskirts |
| Author | Shena Mackay |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2015-11-05 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |