Product Description

Following on from her award-winning first novel, Trumpet, comes a collection of superlative stories.

In true Kay style, these small masterpieces cover a great deal of emotional and narrative terrain, from an immaculate observation of the female physiognomy to the bewilderment of the elderly; from silent hidden love to a lifetime reminiscence of an immigrant's England. Warm and tender, frightening and funny, these stories confirm the arrival of a major storyteller.

'A stunner. I am heartbroken to have finished it' Ali Smith

'The beauty of Kay's stories is in how much they continue to resonate long after finishing' TIME OUT

'These pieces contain - and ultimately liberate - definitively human ordinariness, a rigmarole of isolation and love, fidelity and betrayal, noise and silence, birth and death' GUARDIAN

'One of the liveliest talents of her generation' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114187 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Fear, fantasy, loneliness and desire are the themes of Jackie Kay's debut collection of short stories, Why Don't You Stop Talking. Brian the fitter in "Shark! Shark!" has a hysterical fear of sharks that dominates his life. In "Big Milk" a woman's passionate jealousy of her lesbian lover's relationship with her baby forces her to revisit her own childhood. Kay has a particular talent for describing the physical manifestations of psychological troubles. In "The woman with knife and fork disorder" the breakdown of the ability to organise cutlery stands in for a woman's mental dissolution in response to sudden abandonment by her husband, while in the Kafkaesque "Shell", a stoical, isolated single mother turns slowly and painfully into a tortoise. If you want to see what happens when the stylistic resonances of Borges and Gogol meet impeccable feminism, this is it.

Many of these stories mediate an uncertain boundary between the literal and the metaphorical, and much of their pleasure and challenge lies in this ambivalence. Kay's poetic voice is well suited to the short story form. This is the Jackie Kay of The Adoption Papers and Off Colour: serious, redemptive, forcing the consumer-sanitised reader to recognise the truly impoverished, traumatised reality around them. The heart-aching "In between talking about the elephant" is a particularly brilliant example of how fantasy enables people to survive the banal inevitability of the ordinary experience of death. Kay is good on the troubled relationships between teenagers and their parents and there are a number of lighter and energetically comical stories that add levity to the otherwise twilight tone of this collection. Why Don't You Stop Talking is a memorable collection about the pathology of everyday life. Through these stories, Kay fundamentally challenges and renders suspicious the notion that there are such beings as untroubled, ordinary people.--Rachel Holmes

Review
'A haunting, beautifully written debut' Times 'Miraculously convincing and beautifully written' Daily Telegraph 'An incredibly powerful novel, rich and satisfying' Guardian

About the Author
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh in 1961 and grew up in Glasgow. She has published three collections of poetry, the first of which, The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe 1991), won the Saltire and Forward Prizes. The second, Other Lovers (Bloodaxe 1993), won the Somerset Maugham Award. Trumpet, her first novel, won the Author's Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She lives in Manchester with her son.

Customer Reviews

Intensity, Isolation and Laughing out Loud
Why don't you stop talking. It's an instruction, not a question, taken from one of the most powerful stories in this collection. It isn't aimed at us readers, there'd be no need - the intensity of Jackie Kay's stories leaves you struggling for breath let alone speech.

From the first line, Kay's writing firmly pulls you a couple of layers down below comfort level. Most of the stories centre on private pain, impossible to show or share. Many of them feature women alone and isolated. All of them invoke strong emotions and unsettling thoughts. But they also make you laugh out loud, smile secretly, re-read phrases again and again for sheer joy. And then stay up until you've read all fourteen in an evening, knowing you want to save some, knowing you can't.

Kay is best known as a poet, and every word here is put in place with a poet's precision. Every layer of rhythm and meaning is carefully and confidently constructed, carrying you along like the subtlest of melodies.

Hard to believe this is Kay's first book of short stories and harder still to imagine what she'll do next.

Jackie Kay - Why don't you stop Talking?
I was bought this book for Christmas and I thouroughly enjoyed reading it, although it does not rival the classics such as Tolkien it is a brilliant book. The delightful stories portray the characters so vividly with so few words.

I was very pleased when I found out that the stories did not relate to one another as this ment I could read the book in small portions. My favourite short story is 'The Oldest Woman In Scotland', 'The Woman With Knife and Fork Disorder' is also a story that portrays 'real life' experiences. Although I have not read any of her previous works I am confident that they are all as good as this and I plan to buy 'Trumpet' as soon as possible. A recomendable read.

Excellent, quietly powerful stories
A highly enjoyable collection. Jackie Kay deftly weaves harsh reality with the surreal;Why don't you stop talking: Stories to create stories about the nitty-gritty of 'ordinary' folk's lives, which, although often dealing with the tragic, sparkle with warmth and humour.

A life-affirming collection.