England

March 2, 2015
Man Booker–winner Swift (Last Orders) sets his eye on the mutterings and putterings of everyday English folk in his first story collection in nearly 30 years. Spanning the time of the English Civil War in the mid-17th century to the present day, each of the 25 vignettes explores a simple theme—divorce and separation, death and grief, lust and longing—in unadorned prose and in just a few pages. “Remember This” has a young man penning a love note to his new wife after a day spent signing their wills; the undelivered letter has an unintended effect on their relationship. “Fusilli” finds a father stranded in a supermarket pasta aisle, mourning his soldier son’s death in Afghanistan. In “The Best Days,” a man at a funeral looks back at his first sexual encounter, with a school friend’s mother. Not all Swift’s choices are perfect—some, such as the widow’s preoccupation with washing her dead soldier husband’s shirt in “Was She the Only One,” or the old man’s remembrance of his dead wife after receiving a terminal cancer prognosis in “I Live Alone,” are heartbreakingly intimate, but others, such as the circular “Going Up in the World,” are underdeveloped at best. A uniting factor throughout is Swift’s strong sense of place and the idea that life can be transformed in a moment.

Starred review from April 1, 2015
The British author of Waterland crams enough life into these vignettes and full-blown stories to be justified in slyly giving his third collection a country's name. The opening story sets the recurring theme of postwar changes and displays Swift's (Wish You Were Here, 2012, etc.) skill in compression, low-key humor, and keen glimpses into the marrow of lives. A roofer born in 1951 does well in the building boom after World War II and even better when he shifts to window cleaning for all those glass-clad high rises. The end of the Raj gets a twist with a second-generation Indian doctor recalling how his Anglophilic father was glad the war had brought him to a land he'd come to love in books, with its "thatched cottages, primroses, bluebells." Many stories deal with the pain of love and loss. After a young couple sees a lawyer to make their wills, the husband tries to document his love for his wife in a letter never shared as the story moves inexorably to divorce and lawyers, "in duplicate." One story harks back to World War I, quietly building to a wife's torn feelings at learning her husband of more than five decades may have abused their daughter years ago and hating her grown child for making such claims so late in her parents' lives. It's one of the collection's rare showcases for a woman. The book ends with the title story, an encounter between a comedian and a coast guard officer who might well speak for Swift in his bemusement about how little he knows of the island he watches over. The stories recall different eras stylistically as well, bearing echoes of Cheever, touches of O. Henry, and, in one chilling case, of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." With few weak spots and more than a few killers, it's a potent gathering.

Starred review from March 1, 2015
Swift's first story collection appeared more than 30 years ago. With nine novels to his credit (most recently, Wish You Were Here, 2012) and many prestigious awards, including the Booker Prize, he returns to the short form, presenting 25 stories of exceptional subtlety and substance, some quite concise and all featuring intriguing first-person narrators. England, as the title indicates, is his subject, albeit in the most malleable sense as both a place and a state of mind. His characters, primarily male and ranging from boys to old men, offer piquant testimony about the shock of abrupt changedeath, sexual initiation, divorce, galvanizing moments that affirm or explode quintessentially English mores. Swift illuminates loneliness and self-sufficiency along with the complexities of family, marriage, and friendship. Swift's ensnaring narratorsa boy fascinated by the neighborhood weirdo, a newlywed, two physical education instructorsfret about propriety, struggle with lust, and worry about work and age. Physicians frequently appear, worldly and wry. Swift delves into war's endless anguish in portraits of shell-shocked WWI veterans and a grieving father remembering a phone call from his son in Afghanistan. Swift's stories are impeccably crafted and traditional in style, some are wise celebrations of love and contentment, yet in every tale, emotional intricacies, steely critiques, honed compassion, and wily humor run hot with irony and protest. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fiction lovers will be drawn to these reverberating stories of the human condition by widespread critical attention and Swift's international standing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2014

The author of nine novels, among them the Booker Prize-winning Last Orders and most recently Wish You Were Here, Swift offers his first story collection in nearly 30 years. His topic, as the title suggests, is England itself, and his characters range from two young gay women who find each other while working at a sperm bank to a father having his last conversation with his soldier son in Afghanistan. For smart readers, short story fans, and Anglophiles.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2015

Many of the stories in this absorbing and well-written collection from Booker Prize winner Swift (Last Orders) touch upon bittersweet memories of older men, and even young men, looking back on past actions and emotions. In "Saint Peter," for instance, a man recalls the passing of his father, a vicar, and his mother's subsequent remarriage. In "Ajax," the narrator looks back on a neighbor who lived alone and was the subject of gossip, finally leaving the area under mysterious circumstances, and realizes how he himself might be perceived in this way. The title story relates the intersection of two disparate lives as a Coast Guard serviceman helps a Jamaican comedian whose car is disabled on a deserted stretch of road. Several stories are set in the 1600s and 1700s, as characters reflect on historic events in England and America, while others are more impressionistic, for example, one about a senile woman seeking medical help. VERDICT Few stories are longer than ten pages, and some are only four or five pages, but within the confines of brevity Swift manages to create lives and invest them with drama and import. Although war and death are sometimes featured, the impact and dramatic force is usually focused on the personal, the emotional, and the slighter nuances of character, memory, and regret, which is what makes them memorable. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14.]--James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.