Book Review: The Book of Sheffield (Ed. Catherine Taylor)
Timing, as they say, is everything.
Reviewing The Book of Sheffield (Comma Press), a short story anthology that explores the city through the voices of ten writers, came at a time when the city was already set to re-enter my consciousness. I grew up on the city’s green outskirts before moving to Edinburgh at age 14. Now, at 29, I’m considering pursuing a PhD at Sheffield University. To me, then, this collection felt equal parts timely and nostalgic.
And what a glorious thing it became, to read a short story anthology and be so consistently and pleasantly surprised by relics from my own past. Ponds Forge! I read to myself with a private, childlike glee. Meadowhall! The Manor! Each written landmark felt like an inside joke between me and the author. Such is the joy of a collection so proudly rooted in the city of the past and present for a reader with any memory or fondness for Sheffield.
But those with no connections to the Steel City will find much to admire here. The opening story, in particular, is a stand-out. ‘Weaning’, by Helen Mort, maps a woman’s numb navigation of new motherhood onto the skeleton of Sheffield as she forgets old parts of her life and gains new ones. Sparse, echoing and brutally beautiful, this is a story that celebrates both language and the slippery things there are no words for, evoking Sheffield’s industrial iconography as an anchor in a fog of dislocation.
Other stories explore how it feels to return to the place where you grew up, viewing your child self’s world through an adult’s eyes. ‘The Avenue’ by Margaret Drabble encapsulates that irresistible pull backwards, the magnet of inevitability, the one I feel myself as I rediscover the city: “however far she journeyed, she was always caught on the loop of returning. She could never resist an invitation to Sheffield.”
Collective and personal histories collide in stories such as ‘Visiting the Radicals’ which charts the highs and lows of youthful outrage and idealism, or Desiree Reynolds’ ‘Born on a Sunday, Silent’, which delves into the shameful shadows of Sheffield’s past.
The strength of The Book of Sheffield is the kaleidoscopic nature of its focus. Throughout the collection, we view Sheffield through many lenses; an affluent actress, a scrap metal collector, a mourning son. Genres slide around beneath our feet, shifting from realist humour to speculative. But the steely structures of Sheffield remain the same, looking on.
The Book of Sheffield is edited by Catherine Taylor and published by Comma Press as part of their Reading the City Series.
