WEB NEWS, FEATURES & REVIEWS

It's fair to say that the author of this fascinating collection of short stories has had an equally fascinating life - Michel Faber was born in the Netherlands, grew up in Australia and now has his home in the Scottish Highlands. He has been, variously, a nurse, a pickle-packer and a guinea pig for medical research. These fifteen stories reflect his unconventional background, clearly showing he's a writer who enjoys playing with words and dipping in and out of genres as the mood takes him.

From the surface trappings of science fiction to the sleaze of the contemporary sex industry, Faber has brought forth haunting, often funny, tales that seem freshly plucked from the unpredictable dark side of the human psyche. Fish, the story that kick-started Faber's career with a raft of awards and critical kudos, is a bizarre nightmare of malevolent undersea creatures that take place in a futuristic dream world of fear and oppression. Its scant length barely leaves you time to breath. Then there's Somewhere Warm and Comfortable, concerning a boy's sexual awakening in the shadow of his sister's cancer scare, a powerful narrative that showcases Faber's skilful attention to mood and detail. Accountability and Miss Fatt and Miss Thinne are black satires that mix tragedy and comedy in heady brews.

Short story collections can sometimes prove formless affairs, rudderless oddities with not enough direction to support themselves. But not so this one. In Some Rain Must Fall, Michel Faber has delicately handcrafted each one so that it fits snugly into its allotted place - change anything, and the whole work would suffer. Individually, his stories are original, heartrending, exciting - and, above all, eminently readable - but collectively, this is a literary gem that comes pretty close to perfection.

Mark Campbell