Caravan Thieves

"Most of these vivid and unsettling stories are rooted in apparently everyday lives and situations, but suddenly become surreal or disturbing reading them feels sometimes as though you re walking along in the real world and suddenly step off an edge into a void, where rules of gravity and normality have disappeared but life carries on They re full of Woodward's trademark mix of humour, pathos, dysfunctional families and disappointed lives, as well as dazzling moments of illumination, perfect imagery, beautiful writing and intimations of mortality (in A Ford Mondeo and 'Gardening'). But this time there s infidelity ( Pangea Ultima, Milk, Cleopatra, Firemen ), curdled sex ( Firemen again, and 'Chicken Pox ), strange jobs in kitchens and sandwich bars which involve betrayal and revenge (as in Hygiene or Strawberries ). And the title comes from Rape where a caravan (a nice Fleetwood Marauder) seems to have been lifted from its regular berth at Glenmore Caravan Park in the middle of the night to land it and its occupants in a field in the middle of nowhere which leads to unaccustomed and violent fantasies."