Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Bush Meat - cover

Bush Meat

Mandy Sutter

Publisher: Parthian Books

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

For Sarah's family, memories of early Sixties Aba in south-eastern Nigeria are scorched onto their hearts. A days-old burial mound exposed as an 'exploded diagram' of bones picked clean by beasts. Adaku the Barbary duck with a 'melted face', who was conscripted into friendship by six-year-old Sarah in the first of a lifetime's unlikely alliances, forged by necessity and relocation. The narcotic puff let out from the freezer in the meat-man's shack off the Ikot Ekpene road, where Maureen, Sarah's lonely mother, gave up aspirations to be a 'proper oil company wife' to Jim, and risked buying 'bush meat'. The dry 'snakeskin' bark of the old iroko tree on the bend of the town's river, under whose shade Jim sought sanctuary from people, and whose 'two long white catkins the tree one day bestowed onto his head like confetti.'
Back home, Jim swaps adventure and agency for woodwork and more whisky. Maureen, denying her love of Igbo crafts and cloth, considers reinventing herself as an Oxfam shop assistant. In the days before her grandmother's funeral, Sarah finds the platitudes of her father evasive compared to the wisdom and ritual taught by servant Chidike while burying the household monkey. Sarah's hard-won Nigerian barter goods, a silver thumb-ring and a dare taken to eat fried-fat market 'snack', become devalued. At Aba's Sancta Maria, unaccustomed food was a cone of hot roast groundnuts paid for by a penny with a hole. In Britain, 'unaccustomed' means milk with a 'thickened band of yellow'. Now, the currency is a dare Sarah first honours, then refuses.
As people of that time and place are scattered like those bleached bones, Aba acts as centripetal force on their imagination. Today's city was a small town the like of which Tim Winton gnaws at from different angles in The Turning. Mandy Sutter's approach is similarly innovative. Her themes are substitution, racism, and whether the spirit can ever survive transaction.
Available since: 08/01/2024.
Print length: 228 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Top 10 Short Stories The - The 1900's - The Europeans - The ten best stories written from 1900-1909 by European authors - cover

    Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

    Joseph Conrad, Leonid...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
 
In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
 
The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
 
Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
 
A new century dawns, but old suffocating ideas live on.  Society seems wary of change until it is forced upon it.  But Europe’s authors seem to have no fear.  They move in relentless pursuit with an energy that must at some near future point challenge everything.   The World begins it short march to catastrophe. 
 
1 - The Top 10 - The 1900's - The Europeans - An Introduction 
2 - The Informer by Joseph Conrad 
3 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev 
4 - Tomato Sauce by Hanns Heinz Ewers 
5 - Putois by Anatole France 
6 - The Devil's Horse by Ion Luca Caragiale 
7 - How Treason Came to Russia by Rainer Maria Rilke 
8 - The Duel by Nikolai Teleshov 
9 - Cuchulain of Muirthemne. The Only Son of Aoife by Lady Augusta Gregory 
10 - A Dry Spell by Eimar H Kvaran 
11 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 1 by John Galsworthy 
12 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 2 by John Galsworthy
    Show book
  • The Dead - cover

    The Dead

    James Joyce

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Immerse yourself in the evocative world of James Joyce's "The Dead" with this captivating audiobook. Set in Dublin during the early 20th century, this poignant tale follows Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta as they attend a Christmas party hosted by Gabriel's aunts. 
As the evening unfolds, Gabriel is confronted with the complexities of love, loss, and identity, culminating in a haunting revelation that forces him to confront the ghosts of his past. Joyce's lyrical prose and keen observations of human nature transport listeners to a world of longing, regret, and introspection. 
Narrated with sensitivity and depth, "The Dead" captures the nuances of everyday life while exploring profound themes of mortality and the passage of time. Whether you're a longtime fan of Joyce's work or new to his literary genius, this audiobook offers a mesmerizing listening experience that will stay with you long after the final sentence. 
Perfect for literature enthusiasts, book clubs, and anyone seeking a thought-provoking read, "The Dead" invites listeners to contemplate the mysteries of existence and the enduring power of memory. 
So, if you're ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and emotional resonance, start listening to "The Dead" today and experience the timeless beauty of James Joyce's storytelling. Start Listening to "The Dead" today!
    Show book
  • Seeking Arrangements - A Good Women Story - cover

    Seeking Arrangements - A Good...

    Halle Hill

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A woman boards a Greyhound bus to Florida with her ailing sugar daddy on a long journey to meet his mother. In the middle of the night, in the middle of rural Georgia, another passenger disrupts her plan.Seeking Arrangements is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect.
    Show book
  • Out of Time - How can the dead commit robbery? - cover

    Out of Time - How can the dead...

    Rachel Lawson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    "It's dark tonight I hope we aren't seen," a man said to his partner in crime. 
"It's like the old days we climb in a window and pray not to get caught," said the thief who was known as the Chameleon to his partner the Cat as they stealthily walked through the garden of their mark. 
"The room is the third window on the second story," said the Cat examining the building. The Chameleon tested the strength of a lattice leading to it going up the wall. 
This should work I'm surprised people are so careless with security," the Chameleon said laughing. They climbed up the lattice trying not to be pricked by the thorns of the rose that climbed up it as well. 
"The alarm is off or it should be, but I'll disable it," said the Chameleon. 
He cut the alarm wire and jimmied the window till it opened. 
They climbed in the room and looked about it. 
"The safe is behind that painting," said the Chameleon pointing at the only picture in the room. 
"Ok who will do the work you or me?" asked the Cat who was as skilled a cracksman as the Chameleon. 
"It's my turn you did the last job," said the Chameleon who walked over to the picture removing it handing it to the Cat to put down. 
The Chameleon put his ear to the safe and cracked the lock and opened the door removing the contents out of the safe putting it in a backpack on the Cat's back. 
"Got it! Let's go." said the Chameleon.These Thieves Are Dead!How can the dead commit robbery?
    Show book
  • Dickon the Devil - From their pens to your ears genius in every story - cover

    Dickon the Devil - From their...

    Sheridan Le Fanu

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots.   
For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library. 
In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism.   
He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838.  In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’.  
In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death.  
In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work.  Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’.  
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on February 7th, 1873, at the age of 58.
    Show book
  • A Very Short Romance - From their pens to your ears genius in every story - cover

    A Very Short Romance - From...

    Vsevolod Garshin

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born on 14th February 1855 in what is now Dnipro in the Ukraine, but then part of the Russian Empire. 
After attending secondary school he studied at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.  
Wars between and on behalf of Empires were a regular feature of the decades then.  Garshin volunteered to serve in the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.  
He began as a private in the Balkans campaign and was wounded in action.  By the end of the war, in 1878, he had been promoted to officer rank.  
By now Garshin, having previously published some articles and reviews in newspapers, wished to devote himself to a literary career.  The decision made he resigned his army commission. 
His time as a soldier provided rich experiences for his early stories. His first ‘Four Days’ was related as the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on the battlefield for four days, face to face with the corpse of a Turkish soldier he had killed, gained him early admiration as an author of note.  
He wrote perhaps only 20 stories, but their influence was immense, although in these more modern times he is barely remembered and lives in the more prolific shadows of others.  His characters are superbly worked into stories that come alive in the intensity and reality of his prose.   
Garshin’s most well-known story is ‘The Red Flower’, also known as ‘Scarlet Blossom’ and is easily amongst the first rank of stories dealing with mental health issues.  
Despite early literary success, he himself experienced periodical bouts of mental illness.   
In one such bout Garshin attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself down the stone stairs leading into his apartment building.  Although not immediately fatal, Vsevolod Garshin died as a result of his injuries in a St Petersburg hospital on 5th April 1888.  He was 33.
    Show book