I am writing this as Storm Boehlo rocks my Scottish Highland home on its foundations. Outside my salt-caked windows, autumn is being brutally displaced by winter, all the bright leaves and any fruit I missed gathering in now dashed to the ground.
Escapism is therefore the order of the day!
Short stories are something I love to write myself and it is a surprisingly fragmented and nuanced genre, ranging from microfiction (which I cannot get the hang of, however much I try!) Which can be as little as 50 words to novella, virtual mini-novels at 15,000 – 40,000 words or more.
Sometimes short stories can be humorous, sometimes saccharin, sometimes dark and deeply unsettling. They are often (wrongly) considered to be a lesser genre than the novel. Writing a good short story is just as challenging – and writing a collection of them as good as this even more so.
I prefer longer forms of short story to microfiction and so, clearly, does Stuart R. Fleming, author of this unusual collection of witty, at times gritty and poignant tales. Fleming is a true wordsmith. His polished style reveals previous experience as a writer, even if this is his debut short story collection.
Yes, these short stories are set in Greece, and often in the exquisite and unspoiled Ionian island of Kythira (which has more spellings that you can shake a stick at…) but please don’t expect to find Mamma Mia type holiday froth within these pages.
Fleming’s short stories are deeply respectful of local people and culture and their characters are believable and well rounded. Even the individual story titles are clever and inviting: Bagno describes the ancient healing ritual of sea bathing (not ‘wild swimming’!) among women of a certain age; Helene and Paris offers a witty nod towards Homer’s Odyssey; and who would not want to enjoy the hilarious company of The Sisters of Lemon Street?
I am a great believer in sugar for peace myself.
To me, though, one story stands out from the rest: Faith. The story of Tasos, Eleni (there are many, many Elenis in these stories) and Matina made me weep (and I am a hard-boiled old bat who reads manuscripts for a living). Its themes spoke to me: themes of devoted love and heartbreaking loss; of evolving belief and of the discovery of an ability to move through, if never truly moving beyond, tragedy.
This tale would make a superb film – it has sufficient depth and heart. Perhaps a script treatment would be something to think about in the future?
Printed by the hybrid press Noble Legacy Publishing, this is a beautifully presented collection of short stories. In my view, however, something this good should have been picked up by an agent and published commercially by a short story specialist such as Comma Press in London. The publishing industry misses far too many good things at present.
I have reason to believe that a second collection of short stories is already in the offing. Lucky us to have some more of Stuart R. Fleming’s heartfelt stories to look forward to when the next storm hits…
Olive Leaves – stories of islands, memory and return by Stuart R. Fleming is available online here 👇 https://ebay.io/m/XqF1XX
Photography by Matilda Walker
Vee Walker is an author and editor who loves islands, based between the Scottish Highlands and the Cote d’Azur.
