Tiny Deaths is an intriguing and unusual collection of short stories, the first by film and radio writer Robert Shearman, whose writing credits include Dr Who. The fourteen stories present ordinary lives as more than they seem, and the ordinary world as a veil of illusion, shielding strange events and oddly self conscious individuals, with a theme of mortality, separation and death. The cover notes compare Shearer to Roald Dahl, but Shearman takes many more liberties than Dahl, introducing elements of fantasy and the surreal rather than the highly crafted plots that give Dahl’s stories their twists. Shearman’s stories could definitely be described as tales of the unexpected, but equally as tales of the unlikely but strangely believable. What lends credibility to these stories is the interweaving of the everyday with the otherworldy. If it is not always successful, there is evidence of a writer determined to unsettle our comfortable view of reality, enough to leave the reader with another take on things.

The collection begins with Mortal Coil in which people begin receiving mysterious envelopes announcing the cause and time of their deaths. The effect is not always predictable, especially for Harry Clifford who suffers the unfortunate fate of being the only person not to have received a letter. As the story unfolds the body count rises, and it is not always pretty. Perfect describes lives that are anything but perfect as a couple coerce their precociously perspicacious eight year old daughter into a day of fun at the beach. Within the tension of the story it is evident that the couple are harboring a secret, and the seaside idyll is heading for the rocks. In Grappa the alcohol-fuelled conviviality of an Italian chef opens uncomfortable gaps in the relationship between a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary. Other stories feature family members in conflict, dealing, in various ways, with the aftermath of death. In each story there is some element of the surreal to complicate things. The title story features Jesus in an unauthorized take on his life and death. Jesus dies and is born again, not in heaven, but right back in Galilee, and not just once. In this story Shearer solves the researcher’s problem of what is an appropriate sample size for an ethnographic study. Through endless incarnations Jesus gets first hand experience of every life he has come into contact with, but also gets around the problem of eternal recurrence by taking with him a continuing narrative of linear time.

While the fantasy elements are consistently disconcerting, they are not always carried by writing that allows suspension of disbelief. While a bland declaration that the television is bleeding, literally, allows us to simply accept this strange phenomenon, the dialogue is at times equally bland, creating the impression that Shearman is more comfortable in creating his parallel universe than he is in describing the world we know. There are numerous humorous asides to the reader which remind us that this is the work of an author, and make it just a little more difficult to become lost in the story. In some stories, though, the developing relationships between characters is the central point, and for me these were the most effective. The Storyteller is one such story, in which the fantasy element is lightly worn and more affecting for that. Similarly, the final story Meanwhile in a Small Room a Small Boy is both harrowing and tantalizingly unexplained. It leaves no room for the reader to shrink from the pain of abandonment.

Tiny Deaths will appeal to readers who like an escapist story, but they should be warned that while Shearman will give you that look into another world, he will not allow you to leave it too easily. Like Martin in Damned if You Don’t, you might find that a sojourn in hell is not so easily left behind. Beware of what you want.

© 2009 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story writer, and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand: a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Keywords: short stories