A review by thebobsphere
I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For by Jen Calleja
4.0
Reading Jen Calleja’s short stories is like throwing a spanner into a functioning machine, or taking the Mona Lisa and then drawing cartoon buck teeth on her. What I mean by this analogy is that she presents something seemingly normal and then makes it quirky until the whole story becomes unhinged.
Take the early highlight, Literary Quartet. It starts off with a writer in a prize giving ceremony and I thought the story was going to be a satire of book prizes but then things change and the story evolves with the main character having and existential crises and abandoning the prize only to find out that the person won.
Another example of this muted surrealism would be The Natural where a young actor is fed up of people seeing him as a comedic talent. He then wrangles a meeting with a mega star, hoping that she will see the actor in a serious light. The way things play out, the reader will thinks that all will go according to plan but then she shes him as a comedic actor and tells to continue being funny.
Not all the stories are like this. Divination verges into the surreal and quite nightmarish, Gross Cravings details a pregnant woman’s desire to eat rich food and hang around moneyed people. The Debt Collector goes into the dynamics of ending a relationship ( the theme is revisited in the story Due Process)
I’ve always wondered how a short story can be approached in an interesting way and Jen Calleja manages this. The 13 stories in this collection will twist your brain, make you squirm and laugh. There’s an overall weirdness that makes these stories surprise the reader. They really do stand out.
If one thinks that the short story is a hackneyed format, think again, Jen Calleja has just pushed a couple of boundaries in this collection. Furthermore this is just the beginning. I’m sure more boundaries will be pushed even further in due time.
Many thanks to Prototype for providing a copy of I’m Afraid That’s All We Got Time For.
Take the early highlight, Literary Quartet. It starts off with a writer in a prize giving ceremony and I thought the story was going to be a satire of book prizes but then things change and the story evolves with the main character having and existential crises and abandoning the prize only to find out that the person won.
Another example of this muted surrealism would be The Natural where a young actor is fed up of people seeing him as a comedic talent. He then wrangles a meeting with a mega star, hoping that she will see the actor in a serious light. The way things play out, the reader will thinks that all will go according to plan but then she shes him as a comedic actor and tells to continue being funny.
Not all the stories are like this. Divination verges into the surreal and quite nightmarish, Gross Cravings details a pregnant woman’s desire to eat rich food and hang around moneyed people. The Debt Collector goes into the dynamics of ending a relationship ( the theme is revisited in the story Due Process)
I’ve always wondered how a short story can be approached in an interesting way and Jen Calleja manages this. The 13 stories in this collection will twist your brain, make you squirm and laugh. There’s an overall weirdness that makes these stories surprise the reader. They really do stand out.
If one thinks that the short story is a hackneyed format, think again, Jen Calleja has just pushed a couple of boundaries in this collection. Furthermore this is just the beginning. I’m sure more boundaries will be pushed even further in due time.
Many thanks to Prototype for providing a copy of I’m Afraid That’s All We Got Time For.