Swimming From the Flames

Author: Holdstock, Pauline

ISBN: 0888011822

General Fiction

Trade Paperback

 

 

“Every word is carefully chosen, each sentence is gracefully structured, each story offered to intrigue, delight, confound or startle.

Though Holdstock’s subject matter is often stark and brutal, her elegant, ethereal prose turns raw reality into art.”

 

"tackles the big issues, particularly life and death , and tackles them from a variety of angles.... remarkably dense in imagery and ideas and incredibly varied in tone and style.  Many strategies are offered as ways to swim from the flames or to transcend a fear of death to an acceptance of it as an essential part of living.  Most solutions are profoundly simple....We simply have to read this collection of stories."

 

“Pauline Holdstock moves the focus relentlessly in on the solitary soul... the midnight questions are asked bravely... Holdstock takes the raw, protean matter of myth and guides it sensuously into new forms”