Hugh Garner. Men and Women (1973)

   Hugh Garner. Men and Women (1973) The short stories collected in this book display Garner’s craftsmanship. He is good at plotting, moderately good at characterisation, and uses a plain style that tells the story in a straightforward manner. He clearly wrote for a market (the original publications of the stories are not listed, unfortunately), and that market was the (waning) general and occasionally special-interest magazine that included fiction as one of its staples. Many of these tales have a twist or punch line, but one always sees it coming, so it’s usually unnecessary. Like Callaghan, Garner writes thematic tales, and his themes are the same as Callaghan’s, with perhaps a somewhat more cynical cast to them. Women and men betray each other for all sorts of reasons, but chiefly because of weakness. The psychopath is rare in these tales, and when present is labelled as such. Like Callaghan, Garner often lets his characters condemn themselves out of their own mouths, expressing commonplace views and attitudes in situations that reveal their banality, pretentiousness, or prejudice. The stories are not great literature, they have no pretensions to being great art, but what they set out to do, they do well. They entertain the reader, and perhaps prompt him to think about what’s wrong with the world. ** (2005)