Such was very much the case with the new novella from
Stephen Volk, The Little Gift which
is published by PS Publishing.
It’s a slim, but beautifully produced (and illustrated),
volume and I rattled through it in a single sitting in less than an hour. Its
brevity belies its content however as what we’re given here is a tale of
massive depth, the words and story undergoing some magical synergy to create a
piece of work which stealthily infiltrates your mind, a first person narrative
which makes you believe the story is heading in one direction before craftily
heading off somewhere completely different.
The first person narrative is absolutely essential to the
story. Yes, the narrator is unreliable – but aren’t they all? Narrators (not to
say readers) will always superimpose their own interpretations on stories but
his unreliability isn’t the most important thing anyway. What the narrative
provides here is a beautifully crafted exploration of character. And not a very
nice character at that.
It’s difficult to say too much about the Little Gift without giving away key plot developments. Bad
things happen, some very bad things
happen – both directly and indirectly involving the narrator and it’s his
attitudes towards these events which provide the deepest insights into his
character.
I chose Stephen’s story The
Peter Lorre Fan Club as my favourite of last year because of the skill with
which he slowly unfolded the story by means of dialogue alone and there’s as
much skill on display here this time using a monologue. Some may find metaphors
for society in general in the attitudes of the narrator, but even as “just” a description
of a fairly – actually deeply – unpleasant individual, The Little Gift is an outstanding piece of writing.
A week after reading it, I’m still mulling over The Little Gift. It’s a very, very
clever piece of writing and I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.
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