These are stories about power: children without it and adults vying to get or keep it. A small boy struggles with his parents’ divorce, a doctor fails to understand the limits of his medical power, a wronged wife finds a uniquely powerful way to wreak revenge. Sometimes satirical, sometimes innovative and lyrical, the stories home in on those moments when power can spill into powerlessness: the split-second when a self-satisfied teenager is held at knifepoint by muggers, the trip to the woods with the ‘poor kids’ which teaches a small girl she’s no better than them. They chart the opposite moments when people wrest back power: a daughter rebels against her violent father, a struggling writer decides to expose a con man arts worker, a little girl who wishes her lost father would come back finds she has magic powers. But it’s a slippery thing, power, and these vivid, wry stories spring surprises: for nothing, in the end, is ever quite what it seems.
| ISBN: | 9781844713943 |
| Publication date: | 1st October 2007 |
| Author: | Elizabeth Baines |
| Publisher: | Salt Publishing |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 112 pages |
| Genres: |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction Shorter Reads |