Dozen of the best

Booker Prize winner Graham Swift produces a clever and reflective story collection.

- MARCUS HOBSON

What does "post-war" mean? There continue to be so many conflicts around the world that it might seem tricky to pinpoint a time peaceful enough. The commemoration on May 8 of 80 years since VE Day, Victory in Europe after World War II, gives this short story collection a theme and a rough release date, though one of the 12 tales is set during the war and another in recent Covid times. That the characters are always looking back provides a link to the title.

These are some of Graham Swift's finest stories. He won the Booker Prize for Last Orders in 1996, the story of a group of friends who travel to England's south coast to scatter the ashes of their lost companion. Swift's first book Waterland, 14 years earlier, received a host of first-novel awards for its evocation of the flat fenlands of eastern England.