Nothing But Flowers edited by Jodi Cleghorn.
Nothing But Flowers is a diverse and engaging collection of short stories. It takes its name from a Talking Heads song which the authors used as a prompt for their stories. They are all tales of love at the end of the world but each of the writers has a different interpretation of what exactly that means. These lovers are survivors of plagues, like the flu epidemic of 1918 in the poignant
I Dream of Cherry Pies by Jen Brubacher, or the imagined future pandemic in Jodi Cleghorn's haunting
Scarecrow Man, and of war, as in Paul Servini's
Deux Sots, which is set in German occupied France.
In Headlines and Post-It Notes by Adam Byatt it is the death of a loved one that brings an end to one person's world, though though this is nowhere near as depressing as it sounds.
This anthology of short stories is part of a quarterly series called
Literary Mixed Tapes. These books are crowd-sourced fiction written mainly by emergent authors, many of whom are making their debut as published writers. This does not seem to detract at all from the quality of the writing. Instead it gives the book a freshness and energy that makes it a delight to read.
All profits from the sale of
Nothing But Flowers go to the Grantham Flood Support Fund.
Rated 9/10
The latest Literary Mixed Tapes collection,
Deck The Halls is due for release on Tuesday, July 17th.
Preorders are available within Australia.