About the Author

Catherine Merriman is a distinguished author who has many novels published. Getting a Life is her third collection of short stories published by Honno, and her first collection, Silly Mothers, was runner up for the Welsh Book of the Year in 1992. She has also contributed to many short story anthologies and magazines. She lives in Abergavenny.

Reviews

This is Catherine Merriman's third collection of stories and it finds her in fine form, her voice assured, her inventiveness unbridled. While some stories are the equivalent to an artist's doodlings, small jottings on the margin of the paper, some tales rank with her finest. Getting a Life is a kaleidoscopically varied collection, from the eponymous account of an episode in which the lives of a policewoman and a petty criminal are violently intermingled, through a delicate story of birth in 'Times Like This' to the story of a painter under duress as he is forced to paint his lover's portrait in 'Painting Juliet'. To those familiar with Merriman's output there is the familiar pleasure of the twists-in-the-tales, but there is also an unexpected brutality about some of them. In 'Delivery', an old man who has withdrawn from the world after the death of his wife deals with his feelings of guilt. Such is his belief that his neglect contributed to her death that he re-enacts her dying moments by taking an axe to a visiting relative and, this time, runs to a neighbour to save the threatened life. In 'The Pursuit of Beauty', a love-smitten young man follows a girl to an art gallery and, in watching her, unwittingly makes a security guard believe that he has eyes for him, which ends in a homosexual episode shot through with unexpected desire and flaunted power. In, or on, 'Primrose Hill' things aren't exactly rosy as a rent boy stabs a punter in the thigh. There is some challenging stuff here, but the book is all the more satisfying for it. These are clear stories, cut free of pretentious and portentous language. They illuminate life while taking their cues from its ability to confound and disarm. Catherine Merriman is as much at ease creating science-fiction machines that allow one to see human emotions as colours (white or yellow at times of fear, black for anger, red for guilt and shame) as she is in describing the misdemeanours of bikers, in the previously anthologised 'Barbecue' in which Guzzis are stolen and regained and a dead sheep on the roadside becomes a barbecue centrepiece. This is a book of satisfactions and illuminations, written by a woman whose fan club has grown a little as this reviewer hereby makes his enthusiastic application to join. Jon Gower It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatad Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council