“Oh bachelors, poor bachelors, pining for their pale suits—these needy men, so poignant in their search for wives, will break your heart in twain. Splendid and limping, original collection of stories published in English in the 12 months preceding its award in September. This year we have the usual mix of veteran and debutante authors, although unusually, five of the six places this year have been taken by authors of one country: the USA. Another unusual feature is that as many as three of the books have been published by small presses. All of the shortlistees have agreed to come to Cork next September to attend the awards ceremony and to read from their books at the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival.
The woman sat, watching the people around her, feeling the pain of the child who fell off his bicycle the tiredness of the old man who was slowly making his way home. She felt the joy of the children playing together on the jungle gym and saw the happiness of the young couple walking hand in hand.
Some glanced her way as they passed the bench she was sitting on, but they never spared her a thought. No one noticed the unshed tears in her eyes as she sat there watching and feeling...
hilarious and painful, a quiet perfection in its idiosyncrasy, the powerful alternate reality of Meeks is also an unforgettable truth. You’ll never see marriage the same way again.”
—Lydia Millet (author of How the Dead Dream and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart)
“The life of a bachelor is always hard, but in Meeks it’s truly desperate: if you don’t have the right suit then it’s either the Brothers of Mercy or the factories. Julia Holmes’s lucid prose tightens the noose of this curious world around your readerly neck before you even know what’s hit you. An invisible enemy, a pageant, a fashion system whose signification would stymie Roland Barthes, and a society that demands everyone rush quickly to fill their odd social slot, makes Meeks a unique (and uniquely imaginative) nightmare and a severely engrossing read.”
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