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Short Stories - Family Connections
ISBN-10: 1844712982 ISBN-13: 9781844712984 Price £9.99. Supplied by Gardners Books and available from bookshops, amazon.co.uk and direct from Salt Publishing |
Chrissie has read her stories at Newcastle and Salford Universities, Sydenham Library, Lewisham Theatre, the Whitechapel Gallery, Manchester Central Library, Lancaster Litfest, Foyle's Bookshop and on BBC Radio 4.
Two stories were highly commended in the creative non-fiction category, chaired by Ali Smith, in the 2006 New Writing Ventures awards.
Family Connections was longlisted for the 2007 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. Guardian article about the prize: books.guardian.co.uk
New short story Piercings was published in The Guardian, Saturday 22nd September 2007, Family section. Link to article
Family Connections has been selected by Lewisham Libraries to be part of a list of books chosen by London Library Authorities from independent publishers. The list - Limited Edition - is being promoted in 30 London boroughs as 'London Libraries Recommends' by the London Libraries Development Agency.
About the book
These stories trace the fragile and enduring connections between those related by blood, and those not. A gay couple care for a cantankerous neighbour, a daughter hangs on to the threads of her father’s mind, an anthropologist finds it difficult to leave behind the refugees she has studied. They take an unflinching look at the moments in lives when the axis swivels to reveal insights and actions which surprise and disturb. With crackling wit and a deadpan lyricism the fate of a nonagenarian former channel swimmer is sealed alongside a virginal teenager and a baroque beautician.'A wry and moving collection. Chrissie Gittins has achieved that difficult thing - stories which stay in the mind, inviting us to register the world more acutely and relish its tiny details.' Moniza Alvi
'Chrissie Gittins is a real writer with a bleak, accurate and often very funny take on the drab lives most of us lead . Above all she understands the brutal economy you need for a really successfull short story....' Nigel Williams
'I am SO enjoying the stories. Vivid and touching. I've almost finished it now - I read two or three last thing, then one in the morning. That morning read is a sign I'm loving the book.' Suzannah Dunn
'the ones I've read so far are unusual, clever and funny. Some original twists to traditional plots.' The Dove Grey Reader website, 25th March, 2007.
'somewhere between Alan Bennett and Hyacinth Bucket.' Man at launch at the Whitechapel Gallery.
'I enjoyed Family Connections so much - I've re-read most of the stories. It's the polished laconic storytelling - and the way this combines with your subject matter, which is often profoundly sad, even painful - but never flat, never gloomy, never depressing. You have a real voice and it comes out with the apparently effortlessness which is the mark of finished writing.' Helen Dunmore
'Just wanted to say I've been reading Family Connections and think it is wonderful - very accurate, very moving, very precise. I like particularly the 'unsaidness' of it all.' Judy Kendall
'I'm completely hooked on the short stories - written with so much heart, and delightful turns of phrase', Noël Greig.
'A salty collection,' Sean O'Brien
Reviews
‘Chrissie Gittins manages to fit 22 stories into her 158 pages; most of them carry an insidiously discomforting charge. The economy of her writing is apparent in many of her opening lines: “The first time I felt a penis in my mouth was in a field on a Friday night.” “At thirteen, Julia wanted her mother to die" – this story is about a girl whose mother is suffering a breakdown. There is irony in Gittins’s title: the collection is mostly about disconnections. She writes about the banalities of daily life, but not for easy comedy. Observing the small things that are significant to people, she shows how her characters are essentially alone.’Nicholas Clee, The Guardian. 9th June 2007
‘This is a very lively collection of short stories that rattle on agreeably like a good afternoon tea party between old friends. I found no difficulty reading it. There is not a spare word, no unnecessary details. Short, sharp, fierce, nothing pathetic or sentimental. Chrissie Gittins can see both the humour and the sadness of life in one go and not at great length. She looks at the world ironically, dispassionately. … It is brilliant.'
Mary Knight, Tears in the Fence, Number 43, June 2007.
‘Ten of these stories are set in South East London and one of them mentions our very own Lordship Lane. Wonderfully perceptive, unusual and often very funny, these stories are arresting in their deft mastery of language and their frequently surprising take on the everyday world. The collection achieves that difficult thing – making the reader pause and adjust their own focus upon the world. They linger in the mind long after the pages have closed.'
Karen Ginnane, Dulwich Life, June 2007.
‘I’m thinking of taking out an injunction against Chrissie Gittins. Somehow, in the writing of Family Connections, she infiltrated my mind, and my history. She's like a female Alan Bennett, such is the power of her observation. What she has in great spades, is memory - seemingly minor things, she has retained, and in these stories, she offers them up, making me realise yet again that one's personal history is often about minor memories, because those things can hold such a key to context. She is a real 'story teller', is Chrissie Gittins. She writes of real people living real and sometimes uncomfortable lives. She doesn't wrap them in fancy language because they don't need it, and probably wouldn't welcome it. And it's because of that direct approach that her stories work to such effect.’
Zoë King, Cadenza 17, July 2007
‘This is a collection of 22 short stories covering a wide variety of themes. Each one is short enough for a busy person to read in one sitting. Some are sad, some are funny. They all draw in the reader so much that the outside world just disappears. Ten of the stories are set in South East London including Lewisham. This book is on the long list for the 2007 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize.’
Una O'Malley for Lewisham Library Staff Recommended Reads.
'South London has taken to the traditional trademark deadpan Lancastrian wit of poet, playwright and short story writer, Chrissie Gittins. Equally adept, whether the characters are blood relatives or not. Get sucked in.' London Libraries Recommend, Limited Edition.
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