Stories were well-written and held my interest. Great addition to the author's work

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DJ Taylor has twice been longlisted for the Booker (in 1998 when the longlist was a less distinct concept, and in 2011) and also won the Whitbread (now Costa) Biography award in 2003 for his biography of George Orwell.

This when published in June will I think be his third published short story collection - very much in the style of its predecessor “Stewkey Blues”, also published by the North Norfolk (Cromer) based small press – Salt.

And so much of my review from that collection easily transfers to this.

It is a collection which ranges:

Over time (from the 1970s of the author’s late childhood/youth right up to the near present day – one story in particular – the excellent Annie Prioux influenced “Moving On” itself goes from 1983 to 2007); across Norfolk (this time from Hunstanton on the West Coast to Sea Palling on the East Coast, and from Cromer in the North to Methwold in the South, and with a particular concentration on the various postcodes and districts of Norwich – again “Moving On” ranges all over Norwich and the surrounding areas as its follow a family over their various habitations) and across social class (from the Oxford-aspiring private school educated “elite” of Norwich, the denizens of the rougher parts of Norwich and Norfolk, and the urban middle class either relocating to, having a second home in or simply vacationing in the county).

A particular repeating theme this time seems to be traders: “At Mr McAllisters” is set in a Norwich toy/model aircraft shop, “Drowning in Hunny” in a seafront shop for holiday-makers and “In the Land of Grey and Pink” on a Norwich market stall. All three businesses are going through a time of uncertainty and change and this fits the wider sense of wistfulness and melancholia that permeates this collection like the last.

The author called his previous collection a love letter to Norfolk and (just as I said there) that is my birth county, location of almost all my extended family and location of my second home – it is one I found naturally interesting despite (again repeating myself) as much as Norfolk is very much home, short stories as a literary form being an alien territory for me.

Note that this collection ends with two stories: “Agency” set in a New York literary agency and “Out of Season” set pre-WWII in a French beach resort hotel – and even though both feature an English author (the first as narrator and the second as side-character), they seemed to be out of place in the context of the wider collection, and meant the excellent collection ended on a slight down note.