I read the first story of Byron and Shelley but didn’t finish this collection. Personally, the writing style wasn’t for me despite the interesting premise. I found the thoughts quite disjointed and the initial story jumped around in time without much explanation.

I may be doing this title a disservice in not finishing it, but based on what I did read I found it quite difficult to follow.

This is the first book I have read by Glenn Haybittle, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The book consists of 23 stories that all deal with a pivotal moment in someones life. The stories are not constrained by either time or location but take place in various time periods and various places around the world. As with any book of short stories, you will resonate more with some and less so with others. However, there is not "bad" or "poor" story in the book. The stories are short but deliver quite a punch.

The stories in this collection vary in subject matter and location, and, in particular, in length. Initially I found it hard to detect in all of them the underlying theme of identity described in the blurb. However, gradually I did start to see the connections, some of them obvious (but not necessarily apparent at the time of reading an individual story), some more subtle and others just the odd mention of a name or place. An example of the first is the stories entitled ‘The Patsy’ and ‘Raoul’ whose sinister mood only increases when you read the second story.

There were two standout stories for me. The first was the very moving ‘Mother Love’ in which a son who is caring for his mother suffering with dementia, who has become ‘like a puzzling anagram of herself’, struggles to come to terms with the change in his role, the intimacy of the tasks he has to carry out and the difficult decisions he faces.

The second was ‘The Girls of his Youth’ in which the reader witnesses the chaotic thoughts of a man, possibly also suffering from dementia. Written in a style akin to stream of consciousness, he continually harks back to his past punctuated by a refrain that occurs over and over again. ‘The girls of his youth. The girls of youth break his heart. The girls of his youth make his heart whole again.’

I also enjoyed the first story in the collection, ‘Archaeology’, in which a recently widowed man has to deal with feelings of guilt about his wife’s death and his acute sense of loss. ‘Bereavement is sometimes like wading across a succession of snowfields with no landmark in sight. You are a lone small figure in a vast barren landscape. Other times it’s like a Ferris wheel ride. Like being strapped into a swinging spinning bucket. The dizzying dislocation from familiar grounded reality. The brain regrouping, re-coding, re-evaluating, adjusting itself to a bewildering change in the engrained mental landscape.’ He is also coming to terms with the change in his role, that ‘he’s no longer a husband, just a father’, and gradually realising his limitations as a sole parent to his two young daughters.

The story that gives the collection its title is the longest in the book. Subtitled ‘Brits abroad’ it might just as well have be entitled ‘Brits behaving badly’. Jake arrives in Italy and meets Felix, an actor who has recently played Byron in a film and Ivan, who is writing a biography of Shelley. Alongside their drink and drug fuelled escapades they attempt to discover the whereabouts of a young woman who has mysteriously disappeared. The story’s conclusion is a clever echo of events in the lives of the poets of its title.

The book contains some wonderful descriptive writing and imaginative metaphors. ‘The waves embroider the shingled beach with a ragged silvered stitching; the percussive assent they make as they break and the lamentation as they withdraw over the pebbles seems to come from a distance in time as well as space.’

Byron and Shelley is an interesting and varied collection of stories, with a few misses but also with several that would repay rereading.

Overall, I enjoyed this short story collection. It is an engaging collection of mixed length stories mainly set in or referencing Italy. I enjoyed the themes of family and raw desire and love. The style of writing really captured my imagination. Although a bit choppy, I feel this was largely and intentional writing choice, we are left with fragments of stories to piece together ourselves as the reader. I found this an enjoyable read. I didn’t love every story in the collection but would recommend as a whole.

Enjoyable set of stories, with the changing location and narrative, they were all interesting. Some were better than others, but overall the collection itself read well. Enjoyed the writing a lot too, and I was kept hooked by every different story.

I'm a big short story fan but on the whole the themes here weren't to my taste and I couldn't get past the highly formalised style (particularly in dialogue, where it came across as highly unrealistic). I also struggled with the vastly differing lengths of the stories - the titular story is almost a novella and others are only a couple of pages, so it felt like a disjointed collection and the pacing was never correct for me. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A very enjoyable book with an eclectic mix of stories set in different locations, with a predominance for Italy. All unique and all a very different, a nice collection to return to again and again. Recommended :)

Byron and Shelley
by Glenn Haybittle

Although this book doesn't publish until October, and I usually strictly read my advanced copies in order of publication, something drew me into this short story collection the moment I received it. The cover. How could I put that away for 5 months? I only intended to whet my appetite, but I found myself picking it back up again and again.

There are 23 stories, and although the protagonist is different in each, although the settings vary, predominantly London and Florence, with some in Venice, Jerusalem, Kansas City, and references to Rome, Hamburg, Memphis, Prague, they contain very similar themes throughout. None are a complete story, rather a slice of time where an aha moment occurs regarding the human trait to curate elements of one's identity.

There is something startling about this author's writing. He puts words together beautifully with elegant phrasing and razor sharp metaphors. He describes human nature so accurately, but dwells so long in the shame and embarrassment of self awareness that it often feels like overshare, or perhaps eavesdropping on a private and highly sensitive conversation. Because there is such cross pollination between these stories (the David Bowie obsession, the cold mother, the record shop/ PYE/ recording industry, the Jewish heritage. betrayal of or by girlfriends, effemininity, a tendency towards navel-gazing) and because of the astonishingly authentic insights revealed within the internal narrative, perhaps it's autofiction? It is uncomfortable, thought provoking and moving.

My favourite one is Mother Love, a raw and highly relatable story about a son returning from Italy to England to care for his mother who is suffering from dementia. My least favourite is Byron and Shelley which was jarring in it's incompatibility with the other 22 stories. These stories might not work alone, but together they are addictive.

This book is billed as historical fiction, which to me isn't strictly accurate. If you require plot, this is not for you, but if you like to take a sneaky peek into what makes some people tick, this might be just the ticket.

Publication date: 9th October 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #cheynewalk for the eGalley