The Madonna of the Pool by Helen Stancey is a collection of short stories about small moments in ordinary lives.

Thank you to Fairlight Books and NetGalley for providing me with a galley of this book in return for an honest review.
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The short stories in this collection tend toward a theme of regret. There are many kinds of regret—the quiet regret of a boy in "The Bonfire"; the confused regret of an old woman with dementia in "Sum Ergo Cogito"; the regret of a life lived too easily in "In Memoriam". There are also stories of people fighting regret, such as the stay-at-home-mom in "How Are You, Mrs Crowther?", the new widow in "With Thanks to Christine", and the mom in "Sports Day". The main characters in these stories can see what they will regret and try to change—even if that change is not seen positively by those around them.

I always find it hard to rate a short story collection, as I always like some stories much more than others. This collection had a good number of very strong stories. I found "In Memoriam", "Sum Ergo Cogito", "We're All Right Jack", "You Can't Rely on Pythagoras", and "Sports Day" to have the strongest emotional pull. And though these stories really are quite short, Stancey managed to pack in enough truth that I would love to know what happens to these characters after the stories end.

Writing: 5/5 Plot: 3.5/5 Characters: 4/5

A very pleasant surprise! Not being a huge short story reader, I kept meaning to put the book down but instead kept reading “just one more story” until the book was finished in a day.

Stancey is a master of the English language. Hers is the kind of writing I love — spare, incisive, prose that captures the essence of the scene. Compared to the book I last reviewed, with its run on streams of consciousness, this was like entering a lovely, clean, room — full of curiosities and yet completely clutter-free.

These stories crawl around in people’s heads. Men, women, boys, girls, city-dwellers, country folk. Primarily in Britain but with at least one story of British vacationers abroad. We observe ways of life and death; growing up and growing old; contemplating mortality. These stories encompass everything a short story should be: a deep dip into another place and time, with a message or a twist. Little pieces of life - no great drama, people getting on with it in their own ways.

Some great first lines — my favorite: “Ostensibly it began with the dust mites.” Also some great last paragraphs (which I won’t include as they kind of give away the story!) Intriguing titles as well e.g. “You can’t rely on Pythagoras”.

Some other favorite lines:

“She always felt ambivalent about this. Here was where the demands of intellectual integrity were face-to-face to the demands of social cohesion.”

“Joan cut the cake, manipulating the size of the slices to avoid bisecting any dwarf.”

Looking forward to more from this author!

Helen Stancey's short stories are little gems. Wonderful storytelling. Read this book almost in one sitting as the stories flowed in to each other seamlessly.