Prime Cuts: Stories

‘These stories were all written on the 7.22 between Normanhurst and Central,’ reports the author. I find it eminently pleasing to learn that a writer is so driven to create that he will suffer through even the lurching ignominies of train travel to get words on the page. It speaks of a higher purpose, one that most commuters, hard-wired to their iPods or up to their eyeballs in Sudoku, will never recognise. So, hats off Mr Gaunt, for bucking the trend. His stories – there are three in this collection – all bear the mark of a writer with an instinct for narrative; they are the right shape. Unlike the trains they were written in, however, they tend to follow a haphazard trajectory, even if a sense of inevitability pervades. Between set-up and dénouement, the dramatic tension is confidently built as his protagonists bob and drift on the tides of their lives.