mulberry road: A smoky brew - ‘Tarcutta Wake’ by Josephine Rowe : The Ember

Some astonishing stories in this collection, reviewed by moi at online publication, The Ember:

For such a small book (probably around 20,000 words) the range of material and protagonists is surprisingly large, including a returned soldier, a surrogate mother, a singer in a block of flats, a taxidermist, a runaway family, distant or dead lovers, jazz club patrons, painters and models, writers, actors, even ballerinas moonlighting as strippers. Each story carries others nesting within it, and they unfold like the precisely engineered wings of migrating birds.

Throughout Tarcutta Wake, Rowe’s spare, musical style remains firmly grounded in vocal rhythms, so that fine words like ‘suprasternal’ or ‘ouroboric’ carry their ancient, handsome weight gracefully, instead of sounding pretentious or out of place.

A beautiful third collection from Rowe, and you can purchase it here. Read samples of Rowe’s work at her website.