Under the skin

Why do so many aspiring writers think it best to begin with the short story and graduate to the novel? It’s madness. The short story is infinitely harder to write well. Some novelists succeed at both — William Trevor and John McGahern are the names that spring to mind — but Chekhov never wrote a novel and, coming up to date, our leading woman short-story writer, Helen Simpson, has not been tempted to do so either. I can count on a hand the names of contemporary writers whose collections of short stories are worth reading, but Polly Samson has belonged on one of its fingers since her fine first volume, Lying in Bed. That was published ten years ago. She brought out a novel which is best forgotten, and my gut feeling tells me that Samson is not a natural novelist and should stick to what she does best.

The stories in Perfect Lives are loosely linked, with characters appearing in one and reappearing in another.