Let Them Call It Jazz

Three short stories published as a Penguin 60, taken from books published in the 1970s. The stories are all based around female lead characters, and all feature depression or at least borderline mental illness. Not really happy, uplifting stuff, it is fair to say!

Gets a bit spoilerish below, so stop here if you are about to read it...

The title story tells of Selina, a recent immigrant to the UK, down on her luck. She has little money, and is kicked out of her bedsit and has her money stolen. She is befriended by a man who offers her a room in a run down house, where she spends what little money she has on alcohol and falls out with the neighbours who insist she is too loud. The police are called, and having no means to defend herself, the neighbours lies are believed, and she ends up in jail. Circumstances in jail give her some hope. I will leave the ending for the reader to discover.

The second story Outside the Machine is the story of Inez, a patient in a French hospital, with a number of other female English patients. The story tells the background of each of the patients, their interactions with each other and the staff.

The third story The Insect World tells of Audrey - a woman reading a book about insects, and a day in her life where she is bullied by a shop attendant, jealous of her better off friend, and agues with her housemate.

Not really fitting into the genre or area of interest I normally read, but the stories are well constructed and build the characters well. Each of these stories sits around the 3 mark.