Jan Clausen

Stories

Mother, Sister, Daughter, Lover

Jessica Smith

This book made me reflect a little on anthologies, as a form. I mean, I did really like this book (at least the first half - I felt the last three stories were weaker), but I felt that the fact that it was a series of short stories in an anthology meant that I enjoyed it less than I'd have enjoyed a novel on similar themes.

There's a couple of reasons why I think this. The first one is that every story meant introducing an entirely new set of characters, and this was something I don't think she did very effectively, at least in the last three. For each of those stories, I spent quite a few pages puzzling over how each of the characters was supposed to relate to each other, and in the case of "Yellow Jackets", I never quite did work it out fully. Over the course of a novel, it would have been the same group of characters, and I'd only have to work out the puzzle once. And then the second reason why I didn't like the anthology format as much is that there was no compulsion to keep reading. After reading the first couple of stories, I didn't bother reading any more for months. I read the rest over the course of about a week, but it's such a short book, I could have read faster if I'd been compelled to. But when you're creating a new set of characters every twenty pages, it's hard to get invested in them, and you certainly can't be driven to keep reading out of passionate curiosity to see what happens next.

So that's what I was thinking about the limitations of this form, but then there's more to say about this book beyond that.

As I've probably mentioned, I really liked it. It's a collection of stories that seem pretty well based on the author's own experiences, or the experiences of people in her circle. Some of the characters I can recognise to a certain extent, like the left-wing organiser who calls you up to guilt-trip you into coming to this or that event, or people who think they're really progressive because they can talk about war or capitalism and patriarchy, when actually as people they're kind of shit. There are mothers who neglect their children, lovers who feud because one has joined a left-wing organisation so distanced from reality that it seems a bit cultish... and it goes.

Anyway, I am a left-wing activist, so I don't really just want to rubbish on left-wing activism. The point I'm really trying to make is that there's a lot I could recognise in this book from my experiences, and it was an interesting read because there's really not many books that describe the same kinds of things. One of the characters even leafleted!! It was exciting stuff.

I guess I just came away feeling that much as I enjoyed this, I might have enjoyed a novel on the same themes even more. I mean, she does keep coming back to the same archetypes - the annoying sanctimonious left-wing activist, the depressed single mum, the well-intentioned liberal who thinks radicals are a bit weird, the ten-year-old girl who has to fend for herself, this kind of thing. What limited information I've found through Google suggests that Clausen has also written novels though, and these are maybe some things I should seek out.

I'm not sure how easy this book can be to find - I picked it up at a clearance sale where an entire bag of books went for a dollar. If you stumble across it though, it's well worth a read. Especially if you're familiar with the kinds of milieux she's writing about!

Mother, Sister, Daughter, Lover Stories

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