Tenterhooks is the debut short story collection from Galway-based, Franco-German writer Claire-Lise Kieffer, a graduate of the creative writing master’s at the University of Galway and this collection would sit very comfortably alongside the type of surreal stories popularised by writers such as Miranda July and Cathy Sweeney.
The story concepts are impressively inventive. In Sons & Daughters, a reality TV show offers a €1 million prize to contestants who successfully pick their unknown biological parent out of a selection of strangers. In The Chicken, a woman’s bladder is possessed by the ghost of her dead mother. In A Life Well Lived, an aesthetic procedure adds wrinkles to women’s faces, so they can look as if they have lived full lives. And then there’s Holding Babies, a story about a woman who doesn’t want to have children but seeks out other people’s babies to hold … un...il they make her feel like vomiting.
Kieffer has a talent for shifting the focus of her story in an enjoyably unpredictable way. This is exemplified in the title story about a brutish Galway garda who is waiting for a past secret to be exposed. While the outcome of the plot is easily guessed, Kieffer makes it a much more interesting story by shifting her ending to an unexpected element of the story, which imbues the story and the characters with deeper meaning.
Kieffer’s stories are humorous but never cheerful, and her characters are often repellently fascinating. The sales assistant in Marmite, who tricks hapless men into buying suits they don’t want, is an utter creep, but Kieffer’s characters more often evoke a sense of despair as they seek a way out of loneliness and alienation.
The SDLP, Politics and Peace: The Mark Durkan Interviews by Graham Spencer – a sharp mind in full flow
The Grammar of Angels: Propulsive new account of Renaissance controversies about language, knowledge and the occult
In Judgement of Others by Eleanor Anstruther: An astonishingly chilly comedy of manners
Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) by Markus Zusak: When the family pets are ‘complete b*stards’ but also ‘beautiful darlings’
As with many debut collections, some stories are less successful. Kieffer’s writing style is original but at times I found her unusual word and image selections jarring, obstructing rather than enhancing the stories. And while some stories are strongly rooted in place, at other times I am jolted out of a story by the late-stage introduction of a heretofore unsuspected setting. But these are small, technical issues and there is much to enjoy here. For the most part, Kieffer’s stories are strikingly original and make for unique, intriguing and often darkly funny reading.
