Book description
In 'Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags', crime writer Susan Vigo ponders
death as she travels by train to give a reading of her latest book;
specifically, the kind of death awaiting the characters of her next
heavily-anticipated novel. But an unpleasant encounter with a fellow
passenger sparks a chain of recollections which throws our author's
obsession with the macabre into a shocking light.
In 'Other People's Bathrobes', Adam is frustrated by his
borderline-anorexic girlfriend, and finds himself obsessively reliving
childhood memories of tinned soup and spaghetti at inappropriate
moments. A compulsive thief by nature, when Barbara goes out to work
Adam trawls her apartment looking for hidden fragments which might
reveal her deepest secrets. However, when he finds remnants from
Barbara's unhappy childhood, it is Adam who undergoes an unexpected transformation.
Part of the Storycuts series, these two stories were previously
published in the collection The Atmospheric Railway.
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of four
previous collections of stories -
Babies in Rhinestones
,
Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags
,
The Laughing Academy
and
The World's Smallest Unicorn
. Her novels include
Dunedin
,
The Orchard on Fire
(which was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize),
The Artist's Widow
and
Heligoland
(which was shortlisted for the 2003 Orange Prize).
