Wish I Was Here - Supernormal Reads

Hardcover, 200 pages

English language

Published June 2, 2006 by Picador.

ISBN:: 978-0-330-37331-9
OCLC Number:: 69497771

(1 review)

Love. In Wish I Was Here , Jackie Kay explores every facet of this most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions. In her distinctive voice, simultaneously fierce and delicate, she exposes the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery and stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, loves loss. Every story here resonates with bittersweet lucidity. Fearlessly scrutinizing her characters at their moments of greatest vulnerability, Kay brings the chaotic experience of love -- and of simply living -- into crystalline focus. Wish I Was Here is another work of wondrous emotional intensity and almost blinding illumination by one of our most original and engaging talents. Praise for Why Dont You Stop Talking? ‘The beauty of Kay’s stories is in how much they continue to resonate long after finishing’ Time Out ‘Jackie Kay is a virtuoso of voices that go straight to …

Love. In Wish I Was Here , Jackie Kay explores every facet of this most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions. In her distinctive voice, simultaneously fierce and delicate, she exposes the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery and stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, loves loss. Every story here resonates with bittersweet lucidity. Fearlessly scrutinizing her characters at their moments of greatest vulnerability, Kay brings the chaotic experience of love -- and of simply living -- into crystalline focus. Wish I Was Here is another work of wondrous emotional intensity and almost blinding illumination by one of our most original and engaging talents. Praise for Why Dont You Stop Talking? ‘The beauty of Kay’s stories is in how much they continue to resonate long after finishing’ Time Out ‘Jackie Kay is a virtuoso of voices that go straight to your guts... However different these voices, they all have that warm blend of humour and the detailed noticing of tiny objects which lights up the everyday world and is Kay’s hallmark as a novelist and poet... Warm, gently surreal, wittily compassionate and beautifully written’ Independent on Sunday ‘These pieces contain -- and ultimately liberate -- definitively human ordinariness, a rigmarole of isolation and love, fidelity and betrayal, noise and silence, birth and death’ Guardian

2 editions

ralentina reviewed Wish I Was Here by Jackie Kay

I love Jackie

4 stars

Another re-read (I feel quite good about re-reading books these days, it seems almost an act of defiance to indulge in re-experiencing a book I liked, or didn't, rather than running around to catch up on must reads and add to the pile). I love Jackie Kay, that's the starting point.

Some of the stories I remembered well, obviously the one about the sad lesbian couple breaking up in slow motion because one has fallen in love with a Martis Amis’ fan, which Tascha had picked for a book club meeting in Hong Kong. That is such a good story, with all the despair and sadness of the rejected party coming through, but also conveying how the relationships had really become a little stale...except that when I put it like that it sounds trite and banal, but Jackie Kay weaves it all in such a subtle and humorous way. (You …

Another re-read (I feel quite good about re-reading books these days, it seems almost an act of defiance to indulge in re-experiencing a book I liked, or didn't, rather than running around to catch up on must reads and add to the pile). I love Jackie Kay, that's the starting point.

Some of the stories I remembered well, obviously the one about the sad lesbian couple breaking up in slow motion because one has fallen in love with a Martis Amis’ fan, which Tascha had picked for a book club meeting in Hong Kong. That is such a good story, with all the despair and sadness of the rejected party coming through, but also conveying how the relationships had really become a little stale...except that when I put it like that it sounds trite and banal, but Jackie Kay weaves it all in such a subtle and humorous way. (You go when you can no longer stay)

Wish I was here is the cringe-inducing, funny story of the lady deciding to surprise her best friend by showing up at her holiday hotel, where she's gone with a new, young and hip partner. Again, the perspective of the rejected party (in love with her, clearly desperate for a relationship, and now feeling left behind as a friend) works very well, describing the kind of desperation that gets almost grotesque, but doing so with empathy.

Sonata (during a train journey, a stranger opens her heart to a fellow passenger, telling her of her lost love, destroyed by her own jelousy), I finally realised, is a tribute or retelling to the Kreutzer Sonata, and I have resolved to read that in 2020.

Then there were a few stories that I enjoyed but didn't quite captured me as much, such as the one where a woman gives birth to a fox, or how to get away with suicide.

The last story, The Mirrored Twins, I still remembered. Two 'bear-y', scottish gay men in a beautiful relationship, going hiking and getting into trouble. In my memory, it was the story of the death of one of them, but this time I saw it as much more open ended. I is extremely romantic and sweet, tender and oh very very sad.

She's such a brilliant writer!

Subjects

Fiction
Short Stories
Queer
Lesbian
United Kingdom