I haven’t read Great Circle but have been wanting to read something by this author for a long time and this collection did not disappoint. The whole world is captured in these stories. Amazing.

Maggie Shipstead didn't disappoint in her latest book. Although a departure from Great Circle as it is a collection of short stories, each of them is gripping in their own right. I felt fully engrossed with each character and didn't want any of the stories to end. Fantastic, I can't wait for her next book.

This book was a big disappointment for me. After reading The Great Circle and feeling lukewarm about it, I thought I would give Maggie Shipstead another go. I kind of wish I didn't. None of the stories interested me, and I felt it was a bit of a slog to get through.

I enjoyed "Great Circle" but these short stories didn't really live up to my expectation though there were some interesting, well-drawn characters. Very varied selection of themes.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK and Maggie Shipstead for this advanced copy!

I really wanted to enjoy this, I did! I've heard great praise for Shipstead so was excited to finally read some of her work. My mistake though was going for a collection of short stories, which isn't usually a go-to for me, or even a particularly liked genre. I was confident I'd persevere until the end but, unfortunately, this just wasn't for me and I did DNF!

I made it through the first three stories which were somewhat enjoyable, just not enough for me to continue on. They were OK reads but I didn't feel invested at all. Some nice little anecdotes here and there but that was about it. I'm aware that they just weren't for me and I really did hate to stop but maybe, over time, I'll return to this collection.

* Please research any trigger warnings before reading *

Picked up a couple of times, but needed to wait until I was in the right mood…and I’m glad I did. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this, and while not every one caught my eye there were definitely more than a couple of great stories.
All very different, but I found a sense of wistfulness in all. The characters are often flawed, sometimes deeply so, and I couldn’t help but feel on a number of occasions that I was reading something intensely personal.
The one-night stand featuring the gymnast was unsettling in its honesty, and I found myself intrigued by the title story about the actress escaping a cult.
It has certainly made me more determined to get on with reading The Great Circle.

As I am studying short stories at the moment, I jumped at the chance to read "You have a friend in 10A" as an ARC via NetGalley. Unfortunately these stories weren't my cup of tea and at some point I found myself reading each story wondering how soon sex would feature. I'm not sure when I noticed how prominently sex cropped up so maybe there were earlier stories that didn't have any but, from that point on, every single story did. (My apologies for not going back to check but I frankly don't have the time or inclination.) If you like sex scenes in your short stories then you will possibly love this collection.

The final story 'Backcountry' also contained a facially disfigured secondary character (heaven forbid they would be the main character) and the typical disappointing portrayal ensues: "Ingrid had imagined Richie's wife in various incarnations...but always as a woman, whole and recognizable as such..." Wow! Who knew that a facial disfigurement negated your entire biological gender? Did it get better? Nope. There is a whole paragraph where the writer seems to take salacious delight in writing as unflattering description as possible with "her mangled face" being some of the less obnoxious wording. Of course, Richie "couldn't deal with it" which is why he left her and the reader is even taken by the hand, in case you did find Richie repulsive enough, by explaining what he couldn't deal with. Nope it wasn't watching someone go through the pain or empathising with the depression she perhaps felt, what this man "couldn't deal with" was "her drooping eyelid, the pucker at one corner of her lopsided mouth..." (p241) Prince Charming he certainly was not.

There were some other grammatical ambiguities such as the sentence "Adelaide (the human Adelaide) had been another grand plan." Now I am giving the writer the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they intended to differentiate between the person and a mountain of the same name but, personally, on first reading it sounded as though Adelaide was no longer considered a person after her accident. This effect is continued when the narrator goes on in the same paragraph to describe "photos of Adelaide with her original face". If the writer had found themselves in this predicament there were two options:
1. change the name of the mountain and avoid the issue entirely or
2. write something along the lines of "His relationship with Adelaide had been another grand plan."

The icing on the cake was the final paragraph with begins with "All at once the cheese separates from her son's pizza and lands flat on his face, red sauce-side up, slick and shiny, grotesque. The boys laugh. Ingrid thinks of Adelaide in the snow." For me there is something abhorrent in this final paragraph and it most definitely is not that Adelaide had a facial injury. Ingrid has clearly not matured to still be associating the "grotesque" with Adelaide and all she feels is "mild pity, faint embarrassment. She should have been afraid. She should have understood that even a life lived properly, lived better than she was living, could bring so much grief." I don't even want to go into the list of problems with this so let's just let it as "not for me".

I read and loved Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead a couple of months ago and it was my first read by this author. I’ve been reading this, dipping in and out over the last couple of weeks and it’s a great short story collection. While some of the stories hit the mark for me more than others, the detailed characters, rich descriptions and the authors skill , wit and sharpness made this a really enjoyable read.

I really love how Shipstead writes. As soon as I finished this, I ordered Seating Arrangements I one of this authors earlier novels and I’m looking forward to reading more from her. What a writer!

Having loved Great Circle, this short story collection reminded me of the joy and wit in Shipstead's writing.

Although the stories themselves all cover quite different ground (former gymnasts having sex and lamenting their failures; a writer struggling to think of who to write in or out of their acknowledgements; a story that feels almost pseudo-spylike at times), there is a common thread of joy and humour, even if hidden under layers of sarcasm.

It was a greatly enjoyable collection, and Shipstead again proves herself to be a clever observer of people.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

📏 The Long and Short Of It 📐

On hot tubs: "She felt a patronizing amusement at the power he seemed to ascribe to this glowing turquoise lure, kept snug under a vinyl lid and faithfully fed chlorine pellets in exchange for the hope that women might want to lower their bodies into it."

- You Have A Friend In 10A by Maggie Shipstead

From the much-lauded writer of Great Circle, this short fiction collection showcases Maggie Shipstead's creative prowess. As short stories go, these are fairly long; Shipstead takes her time to unfurl each tale, creating a rich cast of characters and stories that lingered for me, like scenes from a film.

Shipstead's writing style is fairly dense. It asks the reader to chew on it and, at first, I found this off-putting (lazy, I know). But by the end of this collection, I felt like I had tuned into her wavelength. The final two stories are particularly striking. If in doubt, this is a collection worth persevering with

I'd recommend it to anyone who likes vignette-style writing, short(ish) but rich in characterisation and detail.

Thank you to @penguinrandomhouse, @transworldbooks and @netgalley for this ARC.

🏡🪴🏡🪴🏡🪴🏡🪴🏡🪴🏡

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I’m a big Maggie Shipstead fan (Great Circle was my 2021 book of the year) and a big short story fan so I had high hopes for this collection and it didn’t disappoint. Many of the settings will be familiar to those who’ve read Shipstead’s earlier work but the stories themselves are all startlingly original (I’d never have guessed anything about where the titular story goes, for example). My favourite was Souterrain, which richly rewards a close reading and which I thought about for days after. Highly recommended and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I’ve been somewhat distracted this week, and I’ve lacked the mental headspace for reading that I usually have. I spent the week dipping in and out of this excellent short story collection, a format I find brilliant for those days where your brain can’t cope with a novel.

Maggie Shipstead needs little introduction. Her most recent novel Great Circle, a magnificent epic feminist saga about pilot Marion Graves and her mission to fly between the Poles, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize (winner soon to be announced). I hope she wins.

You Have a Friend in 10A is her first short story collection and not unlike Great Circle, it’s jam-packed with rich characters, vivid landscapes and thorny relationships.

My favourite story was The Cowboy Tango, about a love triangle between a dude-rancher, his ranch hand and his nephew who comes to visit. The writing is pure perfection and reminiscent of Annie Proulx in her short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

I thought Soutterain, about an elderly French man on his death bed in Paris, and Angel Dust, about a man who brings his teenage daughters to his deceased father’s remote ranch to clear out his belongings, were excellent too. In truth, I enjoyed them all though.

The weakest story for me was the eponymous You Have a Friend in 10A about a former child actress escaping her life in a cult. It seemed loosely based on Scientology and didn’t really work for me.

Shipstead has such versatility and skill as a writer, her character writing in particular in on a different level. Definitely worth a read if you enjoyed Great Circle. 4/5 ⭐️

*You Have a Friend in 10A will be published on 26 May 2022. Many thanks to the publishers @doubledaybooks @penguinrandomhouse Transworld Books for an advance digital copy of the book via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.*

You Have a Friend in 10A
By Maggie Shipstead

I first read Maggie Shipstead in a short story anthology "A Paris All Your Own" and felt an immediate connection to her, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this, her newest publication. Ten short stories which do not appear to have any connection other than the glorious talent of the author. Each story feels complete, with fully fleshed characters that I really cared about and the settings are nothing short of cinematic. I have my favourite, La Moretta, followed by Souterrain, then You Have a Friend in 10A, then The Cowboy Tango/ Lambs/Angel Lust/ Backcountry with The Great Central Pacific Guano Co., In the Olympic Village and Acknowledgements bringing up the rear. I would say 7 x 5 stars, 2 x 4 stars and 1 x 3 stars. So how to rate it overall? I would say that 7 exquisite stories out 10 is a pretty good result, given that these have been written over the course of 10 years. I am currently reading Shipstead's Booker and Women's Prize shortlisted "Great Circle" and I am in awe of her talent, her writing is music to my ears. She is in my top 5 authors and I am now resolved to complete her entire backlist.
Thank you to #netgalley and #RandomHouseUK for the very welcome ARC

As you’d expect from a writer of Shipstead’s calibre, these are cleverly, thoughtful and well written stories.

I liked the author's previous book (The Great Circle), but this collection of short stories just did not do it for me. I thought a lot of them were slow and a little boring, and I just couldn't get into it. The book is a collection of short fiction written over the last ten years and previously published in other anthologies. with the common theme/subject among them having to do with loss, or endings. I had to fight not to put this book down unfinished as I struggled to find anything of appeal. Most of the stories stem around the narrative of men fancying unattainable women and in several of them most notably Angel Lust I picked up creepy incestuous vibes. Though I didn't mind the first story of a headstrong cowgirl, the rest weren't compelling enough for me to sustain interest beyond a few pages. I wouldn't rule out picking up a book by this author in future but ultimately this title was not for me.

I don't think I'm the best person to give my opinion on short stories because it was years ago the last one I did. Much less in my native language. Your characters came across to me as very uneven in terms of the balance of good and bad. I'm not saying he's bad, but I still don't buy his actions. Especially the "villains" were choking me from how unchronicled I was as I read along. Hopefully I can look forward to reading the following works.

An eclectic collection of short stories. From cowboys on a western ranch to the city of Paris to guano on a Pacific island. Diverse, intriguing, stories which bite and cling on in memory. Others, slightly mellower, but still with a subtle or not so subtle impact but all are enjoyable and thought provoking.

You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead is a varied collection of short stories. I did not enjoy it as much as Great Circle.

An interesting collection of short stories by the author of “Great Circle”

There are eleven stories in the collection, ten of which are immediately readable and one of which, “Acknowledgements,” requires the reader to see the joke in order to persist. Acknowledgements is, as author’s acknowledgements always risk being, the potted autobiography of a literary twannock. One hopes it isn’t aimed at anyone in real life.

“The Cowboy Tango” is the best of the bunch, because the author ventures out of the artistic and show business worlds and into the great outdoors, where she avoids using too much purple prose to portray people actually living in the sort of spectacular landscape where people go on adventure holidays. “Backcountry” has an equivalent setting, but is about slightly different things.

“Angel Lust” and “You Have a Friend in 10A” both touch on the world of young starlets and the seeds of “Great Circle” are there to be seen, but just the seeds. You have a Friend in 10A is also about religious cults, or rather one cult in particular! The author’s take seems to be that what looks like abusive behaviour from the outside, might be what the starlets have decided to live with in order to live their dream. This is not the politically-correct view of the moment, but that might be how Hollywood veterans see it.

“Souterrain” is set in Paris and is the sort of thing that Anais Nin might have written if she hadn’t been writing erotica to pay the rent. “The Great Central Pacific Guano Company” touches on the undoubted truth that any well-trained French official will choose a futile death over being rescued by anyone English. “In the Olympic Village” is very nearly the sort of thing that Anais Nin was paid to write, set in an unnamed Olympic City (possibly Los Angeles) towards the fag end of the games.

There’s a clue to what the twist in the tail of “Lambs” is, in the dates the author gives for the lives of most the important artistic characters.

“La Moretta” is an ill-fated East European road trip in a Simca. It was a bit of a shock to find that the author is old enough to know what a Simca is, or maybe that was just research!

If anyone can convert me to liking short stories, then surely Maggie Shipstead can. And she kind of achieved it. I’m not saying I’m going to rush out and stock up on short stories but I won’t completely disregard them off hand.

Unsurprisingly, some I enjoyed more than others, just like a enjoy some novels more than others, but she’s provided a real mixed bag.

What I think Maggie excels at is character writing and drawing everything she can from every sentence, every plot point, no matter how small or simple. There’s so much feeling and such a sense of person, time and place. The stories are introspective and thought provoking, full of emotion and questions.

They’re all divers stories but centre around relationships - romance, friendship, family, strangers, ancestors, and our relationship to the world and our surroundings.

I think Maggie is a fascinating writer who you can always count on for interesting and entertaining reads full of heart.