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Reviews of Tread Softly
“Perriam is drawn to the idiosyncratic and the absurd. And she is especially good on the unspoken frustrations of a long marriage … This first collection of short stories shows her at her best.”
Independent on Sunday
“Sharply observed insights into everyday people, penned in an exciting and enchanting style.”
Western Mail
“Once you’ve started on [these stories] you’ll find them hard to put down. Loss of certainty and security, of faith and innocence, are the themes to which Perriam continually returns, always with a new twist. God – usually distant or dead – crops up frequently, as does passion in all its forms, from religious devotion to devotionless sex … She’s funny, she’s provocative. Enjoy!
Sea of Faith magazine
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Wendy Perriam talks about Dreams, Demons and Desire
Several of the stories in this collection spring from personal experience. For example, "Crucifixus" -
one of the first stories I ever wrote - was based on a traumatic incident at my convent boarding school, when I was forced to kneel in a dark passage, lit only by a tiny candle, in front of a gigantic Crucifix. 'You crucified him, Wendy, 'Reverend Mother told me as she left me there alone to beg forgiveness for my sins. Naturally I believed her: a nun's word was law. As I knelt in terror, the Christ figure seemed to writhe with pain in the guttering light of the candle, and I did truly feel that it was I who had hammered in the nails and thrust the crown of thorns on to His head.
Happier memories are revisited in "Gambledown", a real-life farm where I spent many idyllic weeks
of the school holidays, and the nearest I ever came to paradise. Like the woman in the story,
I returned there decades later, only to have the door slammed in my face!
"Glossy Daggers" was inspired by my first-ever manicure – a present from my daughter in Seattle.
But ungrateful mother that I was, I saw my new red talons as alien growths, hampering rather than beautifying.
This story moves beyond the superficial glamour of the nail salon to the more turbulent areas of death,
grief, anger and mourning.
Compared with my novels, I'd say the stories are more surreal and enigmatic, yet also more explosive.
I was somewhat shocked to realize at the proof-reading stage how many of them centred on violent revenge
or destruction. I hadn't planned this at all!
In fact, there's less need for forward planning when writing a short story than when structuring a long
and complex novel, whose plot-demands can often be restrictive. A short story doesn't need a plot,
only an impact or explosion of truth, a moment of change or revelation. This can be very liberating
– it frees you to experiment and to follow the promptings of your subconscious. Things can be left unexplained,
and rather than tying up all loose ends you can merely hint at possibilities.
Indeed, this enigmatic quality often gives the story greater power, a point made by H.E. Bates in a preface to
a book of his own short stories: 'As in great drawing, so in the great short story – it is the lines left out that are of paramount importance. You cannot tell all.' A short story should be highly concentrated, like beef stock.
You boil the bones to extract the goodness, then remove the debris and reduce and reduce until you're
left with the pure meaty essence.
My story "SOS" depicts a bad-tempered loner, a misfit in the modern world. Worried that readers wouldn't like him, I tried to soften his sharp edges, but it didn't work. He remained stubbornly abrasive and misanthropic – until the end of the story, that is, when we see a very different side to him.
And talking of denouements, when I begin a short story I'm far less likely to know how it will end than when I embark on a novel. It's a sort of emotional journey that may take me by surprise and draw me, and later the reader, along unexpected byways.
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