BOOK REVIEW

Louisa Adjoa Parker, Stay With Me (short stories)

Ten years ago, in March 2011, my article on Louisa Adjoa Parker was published in Marshwood Vale Magazine. It was based on an interview conducted on 26 November 2010.

Soon after that we collaborated on an anthology, Dorset Voices (Roving Press, 2012), which was honoured by a foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. It contained Louisa’s short story, This Lonely Night.

Louisa’s new book, Stay With Me, contains eighteen outstanding short stories. They deal with dysfunctional and/or separated families living and loving on the margins of seaside towns in the South West, with characters surviving on small or irregular incomes, enduring irresponsible partners and parents, inadequate social credit or care. Other subjects include neglected or abandoned children, deprivation and domestic abuse, an overreliance on alcohol and drugs, violent behaviour and self-harm and, sadly, lingering racial prejudice, low self-esteem and exclusion.

Louisa is the same age as my daughter. They have led very different lives. Louisa has recently written very openly about her own life (Marshwood Vale Magazine, December 2020). It can be found online.

As a white, relatively privileged male pensioner living in retirement after a fulfilling career, it could seem like vicarious eavesdropping or literary voyeurism to read and recommend these stories so highly, but it is not.

Louisa’s less-privileged characters are an integral part of our communities in Weymouth, Lyme Regis, Paignton, Torbay and Totnes, and we can’t live in middle class bubbles without understanding their worlds, their struggles and rights to a place in the sun, where they can feel free to enjoy the sea, to find love, work (if and when it can be found) and to bring up their children in a secure environment, with access to good education, healthy and affordable accommodation and nutritious food.

When Louisa launched Stay With Me, and read some of the stories, she toned down the language, omitting many of the swear words (a pity, but understandable, as she couldn’t see the audience online). One of her great strengths is to capture dialogue, the way her characters speak. She brings them all vividly to life. There are not many admirable or sympathetic characters or role models in her stories. If we can refrain from being judgemental (this may not be a book for the wilfully blinkered or smugly ‘entitled’), we will come away after reading this collection more compassionate and accepting of different life-styles (and of those trying to escape to a better life), without having to compromise personal values or to condone the behaviour of her fictional squatters, drug dealers, alcoholics and abusers. The less open-minded may simply read and despair about the state of the world, but no one should turn away. Louisa’s gaze is honest and unflinching. She is not afraid to focus on matters which may disgust or embarrass the squeamish.

The stories, and her eagerly-awaited first novel, could form the basis of a compelling movie or TV drama series. Producers, bid for the options pronto!

Dysfunctional families feature in another excellent book published recently by the enterprising and adventurous Colenso Books: Life Term, a novel (a psychological thriller) by another West Country author, Mark Allen.

Both books are highly recommended.