Review: Short Stories from a Tall Man

B T McCusker, Short Stories from a Tall Man, (TN Traynor Publishing, 2025)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243790755-short-stories-from-a-tall-man

Innovative stories of ‘quiet humour’

A couple goes on holiday to France, their first holiday since the kids had all grown up. She used to crush on her French teacher, who would greet her with, ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle’.

On the beach, on the tip of a peninsula is a red house with a white gate. The man at the door invites her in, ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle’.

***

Archbishop De Grey tells Tom, ‘it’s a very big job.’ 524½ ft x 222 ft with a tower 235 ft tall, and 36 bells. ‘Can you build it?’ Tom says his guys can handle it.

In 250 years’ time, York Minster would be considered an architectural masterpiece.

***

Three coachloads of elderly ladies visit a hotel on the northwest coast. A explosives engineer, discharged from wartime service, sees enemies all around him. On the beach, a genuine emergency, one of the ladies has drowned, and it’s up to him to get the others all ashore safely.

‘That’s what I like about coach trips,’ he says, ‘every day is new.’

***

Grandad Wilson shows George and Oliver about magnets and about knots. ‘It’s not magic, boys; it’s science,’ he says.

Years later, their daughters hold a box tied with a double fisherman. It’s so old, the knot crumbles in their hands.

‘Magic,’ says George.

***

These mini-synopses give a flavour of the excellent stories in this anthology.

Many of the stories are short, two pages or shorter. They tend to have low-key endings, no big punchlines or dramatic twists, quite artful. The subtitle boasts ‘quiet humour’, and I found that description quite apt. Little vignettes–quirky encounters by the seaside, elders reflecting on their youth, the Shrubs family debating Greek philosophy and geometry, an umbrella hooked on a peg in the hallway. Wonderful, innovative ideas, beautiful writing.

I’m looking at anthologies of short stories at the moment, as our writers’ group has just published one.[1] Short stories can be hard to get your teeth into for the first few paragraphs, as the reader has to suspend disbelief to become hooked into a new world, but their restricted length allows for a concentration of the writer’s skill.

Each story has an adorable colour illustration in pen and crayon.

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[1] All Points Imagination.