Memoirish Stories by Mantel

Hilary Mantel. The Assassination of Mrs Thatcher (2014) Hilary Mantel’s reputation rests on her novels. Wolf Hall was adapted for television, see my review elsewhere on this blog. I read nothing by her until I found this book in our Food Bank Permanent Yard Sale. Mantel is very good at creating character. The first story was first published at a memoir, which I suppose trained her skills at (re-)imagining the first person narrator. Her plots have endings rather than resolutions. They feel like memoirs.
      Even the title story doesn’t get anywhere: it stops just before the assassin squeezes the trigger. But the banal details (he asks for a cup of tea) of everyday life create a sense of reality that any writer would be happy to achieve. The collection provided a couple of hours of entertainment, worth well more than $1 I paid for the book. ** to ***