ONE

The first work in our 20/20 HINDSIGHT showcase is the Outsiders short story anthology from 3 OF CUPS PRESS, edited by Alice Slater. Full of brilliantly written stories exploring what it is to be an outsider, the line-up of writers here is top notch. I want to tell you what I love about every single one of them, but of course I’m better off telling you to GET THIS BOOK AND READ IT COVER TO COVER so you can see for yourself.

A couple of things though – Anna Wood’s contribution, ‘Francine’, so vividly encapsulates the hedonistic hazy headfuck that is camping music festivals that I could almost smell the dank weed and feel the dreadlocks forming at the bottom of my skull. One of Stephanie Victoire’s London moments in ‘Distraction’ paints a similar portrait of the power of music and community: ‘...when the amps were plugged in and the feedback and fuzz hit the walls, we could all ignore everything, and we were the same.’ I miss going to gigs SO. BAD. I dream of sweaty moments in dark rooms with someone else’s beer spilled down my back and six-foot-four dudes blocking my view of the stage. Dog bless stories that can transport me there for a moment or two.

‘Skin’ by Lena Mohamed is another pearler. In this (her first work of fiction, no less), Mohamed has created a tense other-world where, if you’re not on guard at all times, you’ll literally lose the skin off your back. Sarvat Hasin’s ‘The Lady’s Not for Burning’ is equally tense, taking the idea of home and using it as a prism through which we look at issues of identity, race and belonging.

I was particularly excited to see Jen Campbell on the list of contributors as her short story collection The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is one of my all-time favourite books. ‘Miss Juniper’s Academy for Wild Girls’ does not disappoint. Kirsty Logan’s ‘Found Girls’ has a creeping disquiet that will be familiar if you’ve read her 2019 story collection Things We Say in the Dark – another favourite book from past years and one you should find and read (just before bedtime).

In the pages of Outsiders, Slater has put together a faultless collection, including Irenosen Okojie’s poignant introduction where she reminds us, ‘The wonder of stories is that they add dimensions to our understanding of the human condition’ – something the stories and storytellers in Outsiders do in spades. Huge, difficult topics and themes are covered in these pages, but they feel effortless, intimate, familiar, so that we can understand them better, anew.

Buy Outsiders: A short story anthology from 3 OF CUPS PRESS here or wherever you buy rad books.

- Marian