Barcelona Plates by Alexei Sayle
I’m glad I read this, but I came away feeling that Alexei Sayle needs nothing so much as a good editor. Why do I say this? Because roughly a third of the stories in this book are excellent. The eponymous opener is worth 10 minutes of anyone’s time. Roughly another third are what estate agents refer to as ‘a great opportunity’. And the remainder range from ‘not very good’ to ‘GCSE writing project’.
I’ll list which I think are which at the bottom of this entry, where you can ignore my thoughts if you would rather make your own mind up.
If Mr Sayle had had a good editor, maybe the bad ones would never have made it in, and the middling ones would have been kicked into touch until they resembled the very good ones, and he would have been hailed as a fantastic writer of short stories by someone more meaningful than Loaded.
Don’t come to this book with too many preconceptions, however. I was expecting a lot of it to be so silly that my eye would just skim straight over it in self-defence. That didn’t happen once. Definitely worth a read, especially if you are interested in the short story form.
My likes and dislikes as follows (IMHO, of course):
Very good indeed: Barcelona Plates, The Minister for Death (my favourite, I think), You’re Only Middle-Aged Once, Locked Out, Bad Samaritan, Good Samaritan (two independent stories).
Showing a spark of something good, but not quite making the grade: Back in Ten Minutes, A Shrinking Circle of Friends, Lose Weight, Ask Me How, The Last Woman Killed in the War.
Not really very good at all: My Life’s Work, Nic and Tob, Big-Headed Cartoon Animal, This Stupid Smile.
Tags: Alexei Sayle, short stories