Your Father Sends His Love

Your Father Sends His Love is an interesting collection of short stories about parental love and conflict. There is deep emotion here, which is often unspoken, but filters from the pages to prickle the senses of the reader. I raced through this book of 12 stories in a 24 hour period, finding it hard to put down and keen to start the next one. Each is quite different, even in style, but all held my attention being wonderfully engaging.

Stuart Evers acute observation of the human side of his characters is exceptional. He magnifies everyday tasks or situations making them interesting and important elements of his writing. I found his use of repetition in some, to help build the story, quite fascinating and I thought it worked quite brilliantly. In fact ‘Something Else to Say’ was a perfect example of this and I’ll remember it for a long time to come.

The stories cover the past and present, but also the future which allowed the author to experiment with the ‘Swarm’ which was one of my favourites. I’m sure if you read this book you will find your own, which will be different from mine, as all the stories are quite distinct.

I found this a book sometimes made me smile, while other times it played on my emotions. Some stories will stay with me and some of the writing styles I found surprising but enjoyable. This is an intriguing little book which I found delightfully different.

Your Father Sends His Love is a collection of twelve stories that together create a reflective and melancholic whole. I felt I knew the characters, felt I shared something with them and though the picture is at times amusing, there is an underlying bleakness that entices and appeals to me enormously. The stories are clear, precise and often unrelenting.

Though it is always difficult to decide upon favourites in story collections, especially as I liked all of the twelve and felt Evers moved easily between genders and ages, ‘Something Else to Say’ is the story that stays with me the most. The narrator is waiting to meet his best friend in a pub and endlessly runs through a list of what things, what facts he has to offer as conversation. As the story progresses, we learn what lies beneath their need to stick to safe, distant fact. It is a beautifully eloquent and moving story that highlights something Stuart Evers is particularly good at exposing, the absences and failures of our attempts at communication, communication with others and communication with ourselves.

Perhaps this is something the short story form lends itself to – it finds images and moments to represent lifetimes of striving for communion – nevertheless, Your Father Sends His Love is a particularly pointed collection of stories that questions our need to bridge the gap between self and other. Out in May, I can’t recommend it enough.

In this collection, Evers deftly explores fatherhood. He’s an unfussy writer whose clear prose allows the stories to unfold smoothly (before sometimes tripping us up and challenging our assumptions) using small details to great effect;

“A silent cabbie aside from his metronomic sniffing.”

and

“Rosemary moved to be with her parents upsatate. Like Russian dolls, a mother retreating to her girlhood bedroom.”

“These Are The Days” is ostensibly about a relationship between a Grandfather and his Granddaughter. Twenty-one year old Anna unexpectedly turns up at her Grandfather’s home. He appears to be a doting, gentle man, but is unmasked as a negligent father and husband before once again becoming a sympathetic character as his son is revealed as a bully. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, but Evers makes character switches flow naturally and these grey areas are gorgeously insightful.

A man sits in a pub, waiting for his bereaved friend to arrive, rehearsing small talk in “Something Else To Say.” Repetition is used to convey the sheer lack of anything useful one can say when someone’s child has died. All the vital stuff remains unspoken and yet is beautifully conveyed in this touching tale.

I think the title story; “Your Father Sends His Love” is astonishing. It’s definitely the best story I’ve read this year and is an incredibly powerful piece that I don’t want to ruin for anyone else by attempting to describe. I could not stop thinking about it for days after; I was haunted by it and it’s well worth the price of the book alone. As it’s positioned half way through the collection, the stories after perhaps suffer a little in comparison. “Charter year, 1972” seemed strangely clunky; a set up and a punch line.

The last story “Live From the Palladium” has a similar source to “Your Father Sends His Love” and I’m fascinated by how Evers takes this material and shapes it into such achy and perceptive fiction.

If you’re a fan of quietly powerful stories (and who isn’t?) then do give this a read.