Thanks to Salt Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC of Neil Campbell's 'Saying Dirty Things in Regional Accents.'

I would describe this as a collection of micro stories, vignettes (as opposed to short stories - the longest being just a few pages) that deal with the mundanity but genuine challenges of everyday life for working class individuals in Manchester. These men and women of various ages see their city changing beyond recognition both in terms of the physical and the social structures without any thought for the working classes. Skyscrapers full of students replace Victorian streetscapes and family restaurants replace pubs with the working class existing in damp flats on the edges.

As I say, these are all very short - some of them a paragraph - but they nearly all pack a real punch and Campbell has a real knack of carrying us along with a fairly routine anecdote and then, literally with the last sentence, drop a real bombshell.

Some of them are almost diary entries and it's hard to imagine how/why they make it into the collection but he really and truly captures the sadness, tragedy, and anxiety of living from payday to payday as well as the small joyful moments and the little victories, even naming one of the stories, 'Little Victories.'