Author(s): Elske Rahill

Fiction

These remarkable stories are sustained by the experience of motherhood. Here is a bleak realism about relations between men and women, the expectation and the failure, the deeper currents of misogyny and sexism, the violence of inequality and poverty: harsh and necessary snapshots of our condition. In the title story, an isolated young mother is locked in to a custody battle with her abusive husband; "Right to Reply" shows three generations of women confronting the terrible legacy of their family's past; in "Toby," a woman obsessed with hygiene finally snaps, when she finds her home is infested with fleas. The precision of Rahill's prose, the stoicism of her unflinching narrative gaze, reveal characters caught up in violently emotional situations. Elske Rahill's ruthless clarity is balanced by a compassionate identification with the humanity of the victims.