Yet Another Way to Leave Your Lover

Fictional stories about domestic abuse always capture the public conscience. Why not? It happens so often in reality,  imaginary versions should cause neither alarm or surprise but instead give us deeper insight into what happens once the blinds are down next door.

So while it was probably no coincidence that I read Helen Laycock’s tale From This Day Forward  as a similar storyline in the BBC Radio 4’s The Archers reached a near fatal climax, I was amazed to learn that the soap opera’s plot has caused a massive, continuing row. Is it the intimate immediacy of radio drama that’s behind it?

That aside, Laycock’s piece comes from her twelve-story anthology Peace and Disquiet, whose theme aims to disturb even as another collection, Light Bites radiates only good natured cheer.

 

 

Not all the stories work for me as their characters are self-absorbed and their lives read as flimsy cliches. But others, including ‘Til Death Do Us Part and My Name is Not Simon are exceptionally good.

Then comes  Charming Viola.

Well, the author does advise us to ‘sleep tight’.

What? After reading that …?

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© Natalie Wood (08 April 2016)