This collection of stories centres on the ‘slow road to purgatory’, from broken relationships to Huletts sugar-sachet wisdom, writes Jane Rosenthal.
STATIONS by Nick Mulgrew (David Philip)
Slipped into the middle of these collected stories is one that is a fragment, a succinct and poetic evocation of the aftermath and heritage of colonialism.
A shard from it reads thus: “This museum holds things, you said, that we shouldn’t remember. Things not worth remembering. The decades have no hold on the amethyst …”
Who can decide what we should remember? And with what relief we briefly consider the amethyst, while other matters are slowly processed.
Mulgrew clearly intends to contribute to transformation; his stories are direct and current. The title on the spine of the book designates them as “fourteen stories [crossed out] stops on a slow road to purgatory”. They range from the bliss and break-ups of love among the born-frees (Mulgrew is 26) to afterlife wanderings among the shades of settler ancestors, with sharp satire in between.
See full review by Jane Rosenthal in Mail & Guardian
