Reality, Reality - Tapa dura

'Jackie Kay s third collection of short stories ranks among the best of the genre.... Her writing has always been infused with warm, playful humour, and it runs through this collection... wit and vividness.' --Guardian

'By turns invigorating and witty... Kay is fast becoming the arch-chronicler of menopausal middle age, and few women of that age or beyond won t smile in recognition as she skewers the pitfalls and dissatisfactions of this most tricky and poignant of stages. Yet while Kay s default voice, in each of these first-person tales, is spirited and droll, with only one exception these stories are sad, and even tragic... The scenarios drawn in this collection are mostly the stuff of everyday domestic and emotional life, and worthy of comment only for an observer whose eye for human frailty and courage is that of a portraitist who wants to show rather than tell.' --Sunday Herald

'What s most pleasing in this story collection by one of Scotland s most celebrated writers is the quality of exuberance. There are stories here that focus upon and articulate sheer joy, without souring or undercutting it an undertaking that feels bold and uplifting in the context of a medium that tends to be dogged by maudlin introspection. Kay writes lovingly, warmly, inclusively; ever in her sadder tales, her protagonists are sustained by their bolshy wit and their openness to the ludicrousness of things... The pleasure that Kay takes in observation, in dipping her imagination into the secrets of the secretive and the songs of the unsung, is infectious... Her work is always borne along by a current of sheer generous interest in and empathy for people' --Scotland on Sunday

'Brim with sadness as well as humour... This collection certainly doesn t disappoint, each story a character study of admirable immediacy and authenticity. Great stuff'. --Diva

'Existential questions of contemporary life are at the heart of this hilarious, heartbreaking collection that skillfully slots large ideas into small spaces...The poignant, poetic stories are filled with people who have lost something: keys, clothes, competitions, weight, money, memories, marbles, sanity or love... Each to be savoured, these taut tales hauntingly depict the psychological realities of loss and loneliness' --The Observer

'One of Scotland s most celebrated living writers... Reality, Reality s most successful tales glow with a quiet radiance, touched as they are by the warmth of their creator s heart...... there are gems of genuine pathos awaiting discovery' --The Spectator

'[An] exceptional collection' --Intelligent Life (from The Economist)

'Heartbreaking, often funny and minutely observed'
--Irish Times

This is a book about memories, love, sex and the power of the imagination to see us through the most difficult times. The women of Reality, Reality are mesmerizing, whether in love or in solitude. Grace and Rose, glowing with pride, are the first to marry on Shetland; Hadassah, named for the Morning Star, burns as brightly. Margaret, alone in her care home, places her hope in a cherry red cardigan; Elina Makropulos, whose voice is the toast of generations, is desperate to be allowed to grow old. Stef cooks for made-up judges on the TV show in her head. Pat diets for one hundred and forty-three days to find her `Mini-me'. Dionne longs for a child; Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon for her husband. And Elizabeth Ellen carries her new baby into a future she didn't know could be hers. Jackie Kay's newest and most luminous of collections is full of compassion, generosity, sorrow and joy. In fifteen extraordinary stories, she celebrates the richness and power of dream-life to inspire, to repair, and to make real.