Joelle's Bibliofile

Sudden Traveler is a collection of seven short stories by award-winning Sarah Hall, whose short fiction has been justly described as luminous and erotic.  This small sampler demonstrates her flexibility with styles and subjects that vary from the deeply moving and accessible to the more obscure and elusive.  Interwoven in each piece is a recurrent theme of women’s experience in snapshots of important stages of life, both as it is perceived by the women themselves and by men who can only guess about them from a remove.  Some of the stories feature fantastical elements with prose that is heavily metaphoric and lyrical.  Others are more realistically grounded and are thereby starker in their depictions of violence and physical frailty.  As with all collections, some of the stories are stronger than others, and a few cross the border into pretentiousness with Hall’s sometimes excessive use of perplexing symbolism.  Still, Sarah Hall is obviously a wonderful and creative writer with a strong message and the skill with which to convey her point of view.  Sudden Traveler is a nice short introduction to her work and will encourage an open-minded reader to seek out her other offerings.

Thanks to the author, Custom House/William Morrow, and Library Thing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.