LITTLE MARVEL AND OTHER STORIES IS OUT NOW PUBLISHED BY ROBERT HALE
A girl with a crippling pea-phobia, a woman driven to murderous rage in an Anger Management Workshop, a wife torn between her dashing artist-lover and her uptight accountant-husband – these are some of the characters in Wendy Perriam’s fifth short-story collection. Whatever the scenario, Perriam is alive to the raw emotion and underlying drama in even the most limited of lives, combining the daily dilemmas of personal relationships with a deeper exploration of psychological complexities.Many of the stories focus on some triumph or trauma of the human heart. Thirteen-year-old Kirsty is heartbroken on account of her father leaving home; Lynn eats her heart out over the mysterious Indonesians she has invited in off the street; stolid, suburban Ian undergoes a heart-transplant that not only saves his life, but changes his whole life and personality. And not forgetting Brian, the freckled, sandy-haired Credit Controller who, on his first-ever trip abroad, loses his heart to sultry Fiorella in Sorrento.
Haunting and humorous by turns, this new collection depicts a world where happiness and heartache lie perilously close.
The Spectator:
The more tragic stories tend to be her best. The pain of her characters
gives her writing power, and the reader can't help but be emotionally
involved. Perriam is adept at evoking sudden gleams of hope, born of
fantasy, and their inevitable extinction. Each story is based upon a
psychological truth ... Perriam's strength is emotional accuracy. She draws
convincing characters and poignant situations.
The American:
Perriam is fascinated by the secret lives and the obsessions that control
us behind our public faces. Not that all her characters are crazy or afraid.
There is too much humanity and sympathy in the soul of this talented author
to characterise everyone as mad. Many of these stories focus on the bravery
of the human spirit as it truiumphs over fears and doubts. I silently
cheered Ian on in "Heart's Desire", as he galloped off on his high-prancing
Arab steed, and found tears in my eyes as Jane transformed her garden into a
loving memorial for her deceased daughter in "Charlotte Elizabeth". Whether
it's a girl with a fear of peas, or a wife torn between her handsome
artist-lover and her anxious husband, Perriam brings to life the drama in
even the most ordinary of lives.
Piers Plowright, Camden New Journal:
The wit and sharpness of eye that led one reviewer to describe Perriam as
"one of the finest and funniest writers to emerge in England since Kingsley
Amis" are still triumphantly there. Funny and compassionate. Nearly all
her central characters are lonely or in some sort of crisis but manage
through determination or sense of humour, or sheer bloody-mindedness to
comet through. Here, for example, is middle-aged Alice, released by the
death of an eccentric and difficult aunt into an act of generosity and
reconciliation; or directionless Lynn, house-sitting for a friend, suddenly
impelled to take in some homeless strangers; or 90-year-old Frieda,
resenting her loss of independence and the party-games at the DaY Centre,
drawn back through family memories to a new sense of optimism and hope.
Even the defeated characters show a kind of stoic acceptance which is both
touching and oddly encouraging. When sandy-haired credit controller, Brian,
just back from a conference in Italy and the one experience of sexual
passion in his timid life, is led meekly towards his 40th birthday
celebration by his dowdy wife and unattractive children, the feeling is one
of victory rather than defeat. Life is not simply a matter of sexual
fulfilment or the approval of your neighbours, or social success, nice as
all those things might be. "Only accept", to paraphrase E.M. Forster.
Happiness, you feel, in all Perriam's work, is hard to come by. Certainly
not to be expected. But epiphanies, small miracles and revelations are
always possible. In the last story of this collection, 20-year-old Natasha,
slightly embarrassed and out-of-place on a residential creative writing
course, sees in the magnificent early-morning display of a garden peacock, a
way of going forward, in her life and as an author: "...as she began to
write swiftly and - yes, spontaneously - the first chapter of a flamboyant
peacock's tale."
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The complete title story "Little Marvel" is available for free download below:
• CLICK HERE to download in Adobe Acrobat PDF format (72 kb) 
(right mouse click & select "save target/link as")
(Note: This should be readable on most computers,
however you can download a free Adobe reader if required)
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