Persephone's Library and Other Short Stories

Review of Persephone's Library and Other Short Stories from writingcycle.wordpress.com:

"What sets this book apart from the general run of post-apocalypse writing is that you see this ruined world from the points of view of several different people. Life is hard, sometimes brutal, but there is hope, even if it’s sometimes a very slender hope. There are paranormal elements in all but one of the stories, different for each one. The linking of the stories is subtle, and at first, it isn’t clear that they’re all about the same world. By the end, you know a little of what happened, but not exactly what or how.

It’s a quiet book that depends on mood to draw the reader in. And it works wonderfully well. It focuses on the characters, and what little action there is takes place off-screen."

Persephone’s Library and Other Short Stories is a collection of five stories centered around themes of social dis-integration. They are stories in which things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold. But, rather than the drama and flash of apocalypse, in each of these stories, the end of society as we’ve known it comes not with a bang, but a whimper. The world is changed, and what remains of civilization is left ragged and flailing–the result of forces that the protagonists find inexplicable, even as they struggle to find meaning and build lives in the context of these ravaged landscapes.

Stories included are: “Persephone’s Library”, “Don Coyote de la Merika”, “Jemelle’s Exile”, “What Rough Beast?” and “The Talents”.

Excerpt from “Persephone’s Library”:

This morning, I walked up past the new subdivision to the end of the world.  Or at least, to the beginning of the end, just at the edge of the mud flats.

It’s deceptive, when you stand there, where the asphalt breaks off in that jaggedy line and the flats begin.  They look like they spread out forever, but actually, it’s just a couple of hundred yards.  And then the world ends.

They’ve set up patrols along the edge at night, so people don’t wander out there accidentally and fall off.  They also try to catch the jumpers when they can, but they don’t always succeed.  People still slip through.

Take this morning, for instance.  I mean maybe I just got lucky, but there was no-one in sight when I walked up.  Even the watchers in the houses along the edge weren’t around.  I could’ve just kept right on going and maybe even jumped if I wanted to.

But I didn’t.  I just wanted to see the flats.

If you enjoyed this, then check out other books by Kathryn Anthony by clicking through to her author page. Of Myth and Memory: Fictions and Labyrinths is another short story anthology, while Konstantin's Gifts is a novel-length work of Historical Fantasy.

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