Full Description
What links a café in Antarctica, a factory for producing electronic tracking tags and a casino where gamblers can wager their shoes? They're among the multiple venues where award-winning writer Tania Hershman sets her unique tales in this spellbinding debut collection.
Fleeing from tragedy, a bereaved mother opens a cafe on the road to the South Pole. A town which has always suffered extreme cold enjoys sudden warmth. A stranger starts plaiting a young woman's hair. A rabbi comes face to face with an angel in a car park. An elderly woman explains to her young carer what pregnancy used to mean before science took over. A middle-aged housewife overcomes a fear of technology to save her best friend. A desperate childless woman resorts to extreme measures to adopt. A young man's potential is instantly snuffed out by Nature's whims. A lonely widow bakes cakes in the shape of test tubes and DNA.
A number of these stories are inspired by articles from science magazines, taking fact as their starting points and wondering what might happen if . . .? In these surreal, lyrical stories, many of which are only a few pages long, Tania Hershman allows her imagination free reign, as her characters navigate through love, death, friendship, spirituality, mental illness and the havoc wreaked by the weather.
Contents
The White Road
Heavy Bones
Self Raising
The Hand
Space Fright
I am A Camera
On a Roll
Mugs
Sunspots
Go Away
Brewing a storm
The Angel in the Car Park
Evie and the Arfids
Flora comes back
Rainstiffness
Heart
Knotted
Express
Firsts
Exchange Rates
Drizzling
Plaits
The Incredible Exploding Victor
You'll Know
My Name is Henry
Fish-Filled Sea
North Cold
