A review by subtemple
Hollow Shores by Gary Budden

5.0

I was very much looking forward to this debut collection and in no way was I disappointed, or comforted. This is a thought-provoking and insightful sequence of stories in which characters and compass points recur, accumulate, drift back and forth through sluices and conduits to the recent past and the deep past. The stories are not particularly plotty. Most of them are meditations or journeys, or meditations while journeying. The drama is inner. But, it's also outer. There's some evocative landscape writing here, and Budden obviously has a deep affiliation with the English coast and British wildlife. There's also some amazing London writing, too, and one story in particular, Greenteeth had for me intimations of The Wasteland, Ballard and Sinclair. The story Coming on Strong mentions the 'Apeman of Kent spotted in Tunbridge Wells', a subject close to my heart. A powerful and necessary collection, elegiac, ghostly, righteously angry and insufferably sad.