Name: The Beautiful Indifference
ISBN: 9780062208453

Sarah Hall

Winner of the Portico Prize Winner of the Edge Hill University Short Story Prize Short-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Sarah Hall has been hailed as "one of the most significant and exciting of Britain's young novelists" (The Guardian). Now, in this collection of short fiction published in England to phenomenal praise, she has created a work at once provocative and mesmerizing.

Stories

The Beautiful Indifference

azliana aziz

sarah hall was my favorite (late) discovery last year and aside from book pledging to read all of sarah waters' backlist i think i might have to add another sarah to the list too. 

this book, this collection of stories knocked me out thoroughly. engrossing from the beginning till the end with so many highlights from them. butcher's perfume was a tour de force, a sign of what a masterful storyteller she is. the way she spun out full bodied narrative from a big framed girl, rowdy boys, horses and eccentric adults in a story about female friendship, family dynamics, violence and animals was outstanding. 
my other favorites; 

- The Beautiful Indifference
     - Bees     
- She Murdered Mortal He     
- The Nightlong River

finally i have to add that what made this book truly special for me was all of these stories were about women. young girls befriend each other, middle aged woman grasping the idea of companionship, a woman trying to navigate a city life to move on, married woman finding out that her marriage couldn't bound her desires, a young lady contemplates her relationship with a man and a young girl went on huntings to make a cape for her one true friend.
all of them got something special going on with at this rate i'm gonna call it the sarah hall's magic to make her stories read so enchanting and haunting.

From the heathered fells and lowlands of Cumbria with their history of smouldering violence, to the speed and heat of summer London, to an eerily still lake in the Finnish wilderness, Sarah Hall evokes landscapes with extraordinary precision and grace. The characters within these territories are real-life survivors, but whether it's a frustrated housewife seeking extreme experience or a young woman contemplating the death of her lover, dark devices and desires rise to the surface. And the human body, too - flawed, visceral, and full of emotional conflict - provides a sensuous frame for each unfolding drama. Uniquely disturbing and deeply erotic, this collection confirms Sarah Hall as one of the greatest writers of her generation. The BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENCE includes 'Butcher's Perfume', which was short-listed for the BBC National Short Story Prize in 2010

The Beautiful Indifference Stories