Wellington writer Emma Martin. Photo / Supplied
Two Girls In A Boat by Emma Martin
(Victoria University Press $35)
Wellingtonian Emma Martin won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize with the title story of this first collection. So she should have: like the other 10 here, it's meticulous in its details, mature in its style, complex yet clear in
its renderings of human conditions and decisions.
Settings are global: the Tate Modern, the Balclutha Bus Station, Yugoslavia, a Westland graveyard. Characters are changed, often forever. Forgetfulness at a kids' pool party ruptures lives. A mother's rage leads to mutilation and imprisonment.
People are trapped, then break free or accept limitations. A stoic fatalism threads several of the stories. Protagonists return home, chastened or searching. They make quiet, resigned choices. Acceptance is often a virtue, compromise a necessity.
Martin knows how a moment can evoke an entire relationship. A girl is forced to strip and shower before being allowed into her stepmother's home; a mother is pierced by love for her small daughter's wonky handstands; a returned soldier skips stones across a lake; an abused boy squeezes into the gap between fridge and pantry wall.
