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Saturday 16 April 2011

'Touch', Graham Mort

Touch'Touch' Graham Mort
Mort's lush collection of short stories is replete with poetic language and beautiful imagery. The collection sweeps from Iraq, Africa and France, to snowy northern England. Mort writes with dark humour in 'The Caretaker' and 'Ducklings', poetically in 'A Walk in the Snow', humorously in 'Smokehouse' and 'Friday Night' and with expert lightness of touch in Bridport Prize Winning 'The Prince'. The range of this collection is impressive.
In 'Mud Bastard', boys mindlessly torture a frog, while in 'Daniel' a hill farmer thinks about the meaning of life: 'Everything came together in the end. Everything meant something though you couldn't say what or why.' My favourite story was probably 'The Prince' which Tracey Chevalier described as a 'word perfect' description of how 'something out of the ordinary both does and doesn't affect daily life' - the same can be said for many of the stories in this collection.
Read a review of 'Touch' here.  

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