Wonderful set of stories. Boyd at his best, lovely writing and the linkage between the stories makes it feel united. Nothing beats a Boyd novel but this is the next best thing. Recommended

Partly good and partly disappointing: ‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’, the latest collection of short stories by William Boyd, is a bit of a curate’s egg. The shorter the stories, the more satisfying.
Organised in three parts, the first comprises seven short stories. If asked for my favourite from Part 1, I would say the first, ‘The Man Who Liked Kissing Women’. Ludo Abernathy is an art dealer who has foresworn affairs, his previous dalliances having finished three marriages. Now, he sticks to kissing women. Except when he can’t resist the temptation of making a killing on a Lucien Freud painting.
The title story, the longest in the anthology, makes up Part 2. It is more novella than short story, and I almost wish Boyd had developed it as such with a full plotline rather than letting Bethany Mellmoth drift from scene to scene. Bethany is a naïve twenty-something who drifts from boyfriend to boyfriend, dreaming of what she can do with her life but failing to make it happen. Each time it goes wrong, she gives up and moves back with her mother. It was a pleasant read but I’m unclear of Boyd’s central message – perhaps, the over-reliance of young drifters on parents rather than being truly independent – which meant I felt no urgency to read to the end. Of course I did. Bethany’s drifting started to annoy me; perhaps that was Boyd’s point?
Part 3 comprised one story, ‘The Vanishing Game: An Adventure’ which stopped abruptly. It starts off well: Alec Dunbar is an actor who keeps being called to auditions, mistakenly for Alexa Dunbar. His bad day improves when an actress who is waiting for an audition for the same film, offers him £1000 to deliver a package for her to Scotland. Dunbar’s road journey is peppered with references to the various films he has appeared in, and this is humorous. But the action becomes increasingly oddball, and the ending was disappointing. I prefer stories and novels that don’t tie up all the loose ends, but this one finished with too much remaining unexplained.
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Light entertainment... 3½ stars

William Boyd is one of my long-time favourite authors. Although I've always found him a bit hit or miss, when he's on form he's one of the best. As a novelist he tends to write long books, full of layers and depth and detail, and with wonderful characterisation. But I've never come across any short stories by him before, so was intrigued to see how his style would work in that form.

The stories in this collection are largely unconnected, though many of them have a common theme of artists who have experienced some form of failure in their professional or personal lives. To some degree, they're mainly character studies, though each has a plot. They vary in length from quite short up to novella length and, for me, the longer they were, the better they were, so I guess that answers my question about his style suiting the format. There's a lot of humour in them, some of it mildly black, and truthfully, not much depth. I found them enjoyable enough to read but rather disappointingly light – although I'm sure my disappointment is mainly a result of my expectations of him based on his novels.

However, the characterisation is great. Even in the shorter ones, he creates fully formed individuals, with enough background for each to explain why they are as they are. He also shows a lot of originality in both subject matter and structure – everything from a UN soldier in the Congo to an out-of-work actor carrying a mysterious substance on a trip to Scotland, and from a love story told backwards to a series of unsent letters.

So in conclusion, for me, the collection doesn't have the depth that makes his novels stand out from the crowd, but there's still plenty to enjoy overall. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin Books UK.

As always, well written and an enjoyable read. But somewhat disjointed in its structure and lacking in substance. Not his best,

Bethany Mellmoth is drifter in life, she has short term affairs with unsuitable men and flirts with the idea of being an actress but has to get bailed out by her mother each time. Alec Dunbar is an unsuccessful actor inveigled into transporting something to the north of Scotland but which turns into a frightening adventure. Yves is an author who takes his revenge on a cruel reviewer. An art dealer is caught out by his numerous affairs. in a series of short and longer stories Boyd explores different aspects of life an love.

I am not a big fan of short stories but I am a fan of William Boyd so I interested to read this latest offering. In fact I was pleasantly surprised, some stories were excellent, some less so but the ones that were less successful were easily finished. The longer episodes about Bethany Mellmoth were actually better left as stories and not developed into a novel, in the same way that Bethany never developed her novel. She reminded me of so many girls who come from a relatively well-off background and so can afford to flirt with careers for years without ever settling down. I found the 'Boys Own Adventure' involving Alec Dunbar as silly as could be but I skipped through it happily. All in all, a mixed bag of tales but at their best they are superb. I wonder if this were a few musings that Boyd had made as potentially being good enough to develop into novels but enjoyed nevertheless.

Sorry but I tried with this book but couldn't get into it. I don't think that the short story genre is for me.

This well crafted and delightfully written collection of short stories by the renowned author William Boyd was I must admit an absolute joy to read. It is often said that the short story format is was of the hardest to successfully master and certainly to produce such a collection of always intriguing and interesting tales is certainly a feat that can be added to the authors already well regarded repertoire. The central story and indeed the title of the book concerns Bethany Mellmoth an aspiring but unsuccessful actress and her somewhat dysfunctional love life and unrewarding career. This story is of novella length so there is time to develop the central character as she reacts against a series of misfortunes and disappointments which are played out over a year in her life. A story of self discovery and how high expectations have a habit of remaining unfulfilled.

Around this Bethany Mellmoth tale are shorter but nonetheless compelling shorter stories dealing with such subjects as the charting of a relationship starting from a chance reunion encounter when it was long over back to the very first meeting, an increasingly deranged director who sees that his upcoming film project and career are going nowhere and an art dealer who seeks passionate kissing but no more from his extra marital encounters. The last story is perhaps my favourite and some what reminded me of the 39 Steps as an actor who has had many small parts in many unmemorable straight to DVD action movies finds himself now in a real life action adventure in the wilds of Scotland.

There are many comedic, moving and indeed. profound elements to these stories which make you think of the randomness of life and how decisions taken sometimes without full thought can have lasting consequences. I thoroughly enjoyed these tales and can recommend this strongly to those who enjoy the short story format.

When I requested this book, I didn't read the blurb...I was just excited that there was a new one out from William Boyd; so once I started reading and realised it was a collection of short stories I was a bit taken aback! I'll confess I have probably read only half of them but I do intend to go back. With the stories I have read, I felt he mostly managed to hook the reader and leave them satisfied - the two elements of short story writing that are totally vital. I'm definitely still a fan!

I thought this was a bit of a mixed bag. William Boyd is one of our finest writers, so this collection of short stories is all beautifully poised and well done, but I'm not sure what it really added up to in the end.

The book begins with a collection of brief stories, each a sort of character study in which Boyd exposes and skewers the pretensions of various self-deluding characters, often in the world of art, books or film and often with a very unrealistic view of their own talent and character, and of their relationship with others. This is also true of the two later, longer stories in the first of which the eponymous Bethany has a deluded view of her own talents and drifts from one career idea to another without sticking to any of them – which was rather the way I felt about the story itself, in that it had some nice scenes which didn’t add up to much overall. The book closes with a sort of Thirty-Nine Steps-like story which is well done and very gripping…until it just peters out with loose ends all over the place and no resolution. This may be edgy and experimental, but for me it's a very unsatisfactory tactic in this genre and marred an enjoyable story.

It's all very neatly done. The characters are well painted and believable, and Boyd's prose is elegant, poised and unflashy so that it's a pleasure to read. However, I'm not sure how much there is in the way of new insight here - as though these were the author's initial character sketches and vignettes from the sort of longer, more profound books which we know Boyd can write. As a result I enjoyed the process of reading, but I did get to the end with a sense of not really having gained a lot from the process.

This is definitely worth four stars because I did enjoy it, but I can only give it a qualified recommendation.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

William Boyce is a favourite author and this series of interlinked stories does not disappoint. They are well written, cleverly referenced to current times and feature believable, endearing characters. Flawed, failing individuals who spring from the page and demand attention. Well worth reafing

I did not enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed others by William Boyd. It didn't feel coherent and I wasn't allowed to engage with the characters as much as in his novels.

William Boyd’s collection of stories “The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth“ is not easy to review. As it often with such an assembly of very various texts, differing in length and topic, not connected in any way, you cannot pay them all the due respect in a review. The opening is great, I absolutely liked the the story about the art dealer and womanizer Ludo who immediately after having married one is looking for the next wife. The story about the thief did not really appeal to me, it was a mere enumeration without a real story, whereas the story of the freeing of the monkey had some deeper message. The longest and title providing story was the one about Bethany Mellmoth. Actually, I think it would have also made a good novel if extended a bit. Bethany is an interesting character and I think her make-up could have provided more to fill the pages of a whole book. In the last story, we even get a kind of short thriller which I also liked a lot. You sense that there is something odd about the woman and job for Dunbar, but it is hard to say what is wrong about it. William Boyd knows how to tell a story and he definitely is best in longer narrations such as the one about Bethany’s dreams.


One reoccurring topic in several stories is love, or rather: unfulfilled love. The characters are looking for the one person with whom they can spend the rest of their life, but they only encounter the ones who do not really match or who have mischievous plans. Or they themselves are actually unable to love and to be faithful. Loneliness can be found in many of them which gives the whole collection a kind of underlying melancholy.


All in all, there is something in every single story and a lot of wit in Boyd’s writing make reading the stories a great pleasure. In the narration of Bethany’s dreams he somehow sums at a point what life and the core of his stories are about, what he not only tries but masterly manages to portray:

Bethany is suspicious – this is not normal: everything seems to be going well and this is not how the world works – no. Life is a dysfunctioning system, she knows: failure, breakdown, disappointment, frustration – where are you hiding?

If you've enjoyed any of William Boyd's books, there is something for you in this short story collection. Among them are a jaded older man reminiscing, a young woman with artistic sensibilities trying to find herself, a story set in Africa, a man trying to outwit his pursuers in Scotland. Different stories reminded me of different books that he has written. There were elements of Brazzaville Beach, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Sweet Caress and Restless, among others. It's a disparate collection, bucking the trend for short stories to be linked in some way.

The first section consists of seven short stories, mostly very pleasing but not terribly memorable. Boyd has a gift for putting you inside the main character's head very quickly - I find with his writing that I often remember the characters, but struggle to remember the plots.

I read this on an ereader so it's difficult to be sure, but it felt like the titular "Dreams of Bethany Mellmouth" takes up about half (the middle section) of this book. More a novella than a short story, it's about a young woman who reinvents herself with each new boyfriend that she acquires.

The final story is the most enjoyable and is highly reminiscent of "The 39 steps", a book that Boyd has often cited as a favourite and as his inspiration for Ordinary Thunderstorms. It's about an actor who is making a delivery to remote Scotland, but finds himself on the run from mysterious pursuers. I have to say that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's totally gripping and thoroughly enjoyable: worth the price of entry in its own right.

I’ve often discussed my difficult relationship with the short story and have concluded that on the whole I much prefer a novel where the author has time to develop the characters or alternatively say something important rather than entertain me for a short while. Of course, like novels, all short stories are different some appearing in compendiums of different authors on a theme while others are chosen to reflect the different styles of a single author but of course they can consist of anything and everything else in between. In William Boyd’s The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth the reader is treated to a loose association of stories that celebrate, or perhaps that should be denigrate the life of those who are ‘artists’, with most of the stories including the one that claims the title of this collection looking at the world of those who make their living out of the world of art. And, I enjoyed each and everyone. This time there was no feeling that the story despite being perfectly formed was a mere snack that stimulated rather than satiated my appetite, I can firmly say that William Boyd has given me cause to view the form with a renewed enthusiasm.

My favourite story of all was the last in a the book, where Alec Dunbar, a film actor is called to an audition for a film with an embargoed script only to find out that in a case of mistaken identity the actual auditionee should have been a young female called Alexa Dunbar. Then in a twist of fate, the actor is offered a job driving a cask of holy water to a remote part of Scotland for a christening by another actress who can’t deliver it herself as she has a broken ankle. He takes the job for a price and soon finds himself in all manner of bother, planning his next move using inspiration from previous film scripts. The reader therefore gets a sense of where Alec Dunbar is in his career by the curious snippets, films about a SAS film reminded him of the car he was to drive on the mammoth journey soon morph into a short memory of some t’ai chi learnt on a Samurai movie later switching to a sentimental WWII movie. This inspired format keeps the theme of actors running through what is a farcical tale which I’m not sure I would have engaged with if I hadn’t spent my time becoming thoroughly immersed in the world of artists, their single-minded simultaneous over-confidence and crushing self-doubt that I’d enjoyed during the preceding stories.

The title story is a novella and also brilliantly executed while it examines of a relatively short period of time in the life of an aspiring actress, or perhaps photographer, whereby Bethany’s dreams are adapted to the situation she finds herself in. This tale managed to elicit some sympathy and even a little admiration for her even while the sensible voice in my head is urging her to see these unrealistic dreams for what they are before her life spirals too far in a downward direction.

With the book headed up by some far shorter but delightfully pithy tales there is an awful lot to enjoy in William Boyd’s collection and it has prompted me to look out some of his novels since he had dropped off my radar for some explicable reason.

I’d like to thank the publishers Penguin Books UK for allowing me to read an ARC of The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth ahead of publication on 2 November 2017, this review is my unbiased thanks to them.

This is a superb collection of short stories from a well respected writer. A word of warning though... it can be hard to follow the stories as sometimes they don't have a title and just segue into the next one without you realising. I was several sentences into the second story before I realised what was happening.

Most of the protagonists in these stories are artists of some sort, writers or actors or on the fringe of the arts. It's hard to pick out my favourite. I enjoyed every single one but the one that stood out for me was the writer who bumped into a critic when he was on holiday and takes revenge on him. I suspect any author who has had a bad review would be cheering on the writer. Revenge is a dish best served cold or in this case, best served slightly warm from baking in the sun. Also outstanding was the title story which is about a young girl who dreams of being on the verge of success in a variety of artistic endeavours. Bethany is an endearing if somewhat irritating character who can't decide what she wants in life. I also loved the final story, where an out of work actor finds himself in peril and uses his experiences of acting in bad films to help him get out of trouble.

All of the stories are good though and I can see myself going back to them again and again.

William Boyd has penned a number of short series that have the occasional loose interconnections. Art dealer Luke Abernathy likes kissing women, managing to stay ostensibly faithful to his pregnant wife who expecting twins. He sees an opportunity to make a phenomenal profit over the sale of Lucian Freud painting, and finds himself going beyond a kiss. He is left wondering if there is something more to the events that occur as his marriage falls apart. A couple's relationship is related going backwards to how it first began. A German soldier becomes obsessed with a chimpanzee on a UN mission and sets a monkey free at home. A film maker finds his mental health spiralling downwards as his movie plans fall apart. A lifelong kleptomaniac relates his history of stealing from airline memorabilia and ending with airline memorabilia. An artist celebrates his portrait of Brodie, a corporate CEO, a painting so bad that it's good. The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth gives us a year in the life of 24 year old Bethany as her ambitions shift as her personal life drifts from one shambles to another. Her dreams of being a novelist, an actress, photographer and more fall apart. In the final story, Boyd gives us a tense thriller. Alec Dunbar, finds he has been mistaken for Alexa in a movie audition. He takes up an offer to deliver a flask of holy water from the River Jordan to a church in Scotland only to find himself being followed. Using knowledge gained from his previous roles, Alec foils sinister ruthless plans. I liked most of the stories but the last one was my favourite. If you like William Boyd, then it is likely that you will enjoy this disparate collection of tales. Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC.

The Ministry of Silly Names
On the one hand a selection of comical or wryly amusing short stories, on the other hand a series of vignettes of societal attitudes in Britain today, these stories both entertain and exasperate the reader.
There are loose connections: a central character in one story has a bit part in another; many of the stories focus on people who imagine themselves as artists in some way, actors, film directors, writers, sculptors; most of the participants have silly names, often chosen by themselves, names which they imagine enhance their ‘artisteness’ in some way, but which simply emphasise their selfishness, their egocentricity, their second-rate talents.
The title story is the best in the selection, a novella in itself, a year in the life of a fey young woman, not unintelligent, but a snowflake, drifting from one unrealistic ambition to another, meeting other self-obsessed partners, settling to nothing – all the time suffering a vague feeling that life is passing by and none of her many targets have or will be met.
Divorce, unfaithfulness, self-deception, a pursuit of artistic standing by the lazy and untalented, the subjects of stories which are all funny but with a bite.

Short story collections never seem to sell really well, unless there is a big name author and this will hopefully be the case here as William Boyd collects together some entertaining short stories and a novella as the collection’s centre piece.

Turning first to the novella and the character who gives this collection its name, Bethany Mellmoth is a 24 year old who we follow on a year of her life as she tries various ways to find her career path and the relationships she has along the way. I actually preferred the short stories to this longer piece as I struggled to feel any empathy for her.

Of the other stories the last one is an excellent page turning thriller where the main character calls upon his past roles in a series of failed thriller films to help him in an unusual encounter. The film industry does weave its way into a few of the other stories, showing the less glamorous side of the industry.

William Boyd has a great knack of switching genres, be it how relationships thrive and fail, takes on modern life, ‘must read’ thriller – that is the beauty of this collection in that you never know what to expect next.

A delicious collection of short stories from William Boyd, with a range of different voices - men, women and all ages. There is a young aspiring actress (Bethany Mellmoth), a middle aged womanising art dealer and a couple looking at their relationship.

All achieve the magic that sometimes happens with short stories - where entire lives, and the moments that change lives are encapsulated in a few sentences on a page. A really good book.

I must declare from the outset that I am a real William Boyd fan and have loved every book of his that I have read so far. Hence I was delighted to receive his new book of short stories from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review and thank the publisher for the opportunity to do so.

William Boyd writes with many different voices and styles in this collection of fast-moving, page-turning tales, which I enjoyed reading very much.

His stories start with an irrepressibly lascivious and corrupt art dealer who, despite trying to stop his philandering and stay faithful to his wife, just cannot give up kissing other women.

Then is the story of Meredith and Max's relationship, told backwards in time from a chance meeting in a diy shop.

We go on to read of the misguided actions of a soldier abroad, the revenge of an author whose career has been railroaded by a disastrous book review, the frustration of a repeatedly thwarted film producer and the addiction of a repeat thief.

The titular story is by far the largest in the collection and recounts a year in the life of a 24-year old girl who, with the freedom of youth moves from one ambition and relationship to another.

And finally, my favourite story - a thriller where the actor involved finds his movie acting experiences strangely useful in solving the mystery.

I really enjoyed the varying styles of the stories. For instance, William Boyd uses multiple voices, gives snapshots of lives both moving forwards and backwards in time and, in one of the stories, uses correspondence sent between characters to tell the tale.

William Boyd sets his scenes so effectively, portrays his characters in such depth and has plots so full of action that I found it hard to believe that he has used so few words to achieve this.

In short, a really entertaining read with hugely imaginative and diverse stories.