LITTLE MARVEL AND OTHER STORIES IS 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
come 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."
Alison McRobb, Sofia Magazine:
"Unsung", "underrated" - strangely these descriptions appear on the
book-jacket of this collection; the judgement of reviewers who are actually
praising the author to the skies for her witty-but-serious take on life. If
these reviews are sincere, then Wendy Perriam is being both "rated" and
"sung" - and with good reason.
Bravely, Perriam probes the slippery topics of love and fear, fixation and disgust. "Little Marvel", we find out, is a variety of green pea. Green peas bizarrely become the heroine's phobia. We can smile, but also share the sorrows of poor Dolores, menaced by green thoughts in a green shade. The narrative shows deep understanding of the intractable nature of phobia.
All these tales grapple with their protagonists' consciousness of a deep deficiency or an irreconcilable conflict in their life. This is thoughtful stuff, although the absurdity of which the characters themeselves are disarmingly aware can certainly be funny. What can one say to credit-controller Brian, pushing forty, who, on a business trip to Sorrento, has his eyes opened to real passion by the beautiful, willing Fiorella, half his age? Go back. You know you belong with your dowdy wife and uncouth teenage children. Why? Because they love you, that's why. And yet ....
Unlike many authors, Perriam seems to be able to empathise equally with the dreams and disappointments of the young and callow, the well-meaning middle-aged and the nearly dotty elderly - and with both men and women. We can suffer the agonies of the young daughter of a broken marriage, just as we can cringe with Grace at her unwanted Diamond Wedding celebrations. "She and Charles remained at arms's length, despite six long decades of so-called intimacy, yet she had never, once, admitted her frustration, except silently, to the furniture." A lot of life is frankly disappointing. You can learn the reasons, examine the causes, but you are still stuck with the results.
Perriam gives religion of any sort fairly short shrift, mainly because it fails to deliver the goods. In fact, in all of the stories, she herself only rates things, people and ideas that deliver the goods. This down-to-earth approach is so characteristic of her that the surprising, sometimes surreal endings of the stories can leave the reader gasping, but never indifferent.
The technical quality of Perriam's work is justly praised. It would be hard to fault. As Fay Weldon says: "Wendy was born to write". In the final story, "Peacocks", Perriam reveals a perceptive grasp, perhaps to some extent autobiographical, of the urge to write, and how easily it can be inhibited or stifled.
An impressive fifth collection of short stories, "Little Marvel" is, then, a rewarding read from a writer who knows how to mix irony, fury and humanity. Her people all find a brave way out of their predicament. We might not always approve of their choices - some may be too accepting for our taste, some too wild, some truly surreal. But they are honest choices, born of honest reflection."
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The complete title story "Little Marvel" is available for free download below:
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