Safe Return Doubtful

Published 2022 – London

I can’t recall why I added this to my tbr list. On the surface of it, it would seem not to fit my palate, but it surprised me in a good way. I just get a hint of Carson McCullers about her writing. In several of the stories adolescent girls are key characters, and though not as dark as the likes of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Sams writing manages to the challenges faced by that age group in a sincere way that hides nothing. There is also an element of dark humour that makes several of the stories stand out.

The women she writes about occupy different places on a spectrum of age as they go through sexual maturity. They all concern sex, even if it is, in the case of my favourite story in the collection, The , dealing with the sexualisation and objectification of children.

In Tinderloin 16 year old Gracie matches with 28 year old Ryan through Tinder, though neither has made any effort with their profile. The anonymity of Gracie is typical of Sams’s protagonists, something of a mystery not only to the reader, but also to themselves. Gracie lost her mother when she was young, and lives with her father who is a butcher, also working with him in the shop. She appraises Ryan as if he were a cut of beef, ‘a good ratio of muscle to fat’. There’s a twist at the end of many of these stories, and it’s usually not a happy one. In this, Ryan’s dog, Petal, sees things from Gracie’s point of view also.

The stand out for me, as I mentioned above, is The Mothers and the Girls in which two 15 year old girls are camping with their mothers preparing for a weekend festival. The girls may or may not be twins with same sex parents, who are trapeze artists, the girls befriend the charismatic River, the son of a guy running a craft exhibition. The endings to some of the stories, such as this, are very McCullers, with almost a trickle of horror running through them.

There are one or two that are ordinary, and won’t stick in the memory, but overall, this is an excellent collection.