Publisher - Dead Ink

Published - Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle eBook

A woman feeding a baby late at night listens to the animal sounds in the city around her. A grieving widow encounters an injured jellyfish on a deserted beach. A young woman can’t shake the image of dying hare she finds at the side of the road. A dairy farmer hears her herd bellow with fear at night. 'Animals at Night' is Naomi Booth’s first collection of short stories. Collected here are stories that illuminate the strange nocturnal meetings between humans and other animals.

We tend to think there are night owls and morning larks as default states for people but I think the truth gets more complicated. There are times when we fall more into night-time rhythms. That can be due to work, life events, stress, or illness. There was a period many years ago when I would awake at 2 am every working day.  At night there are different ways of looking at the world and almost a different side to where we live comes alive. In Naomi Booth’s excellent collection of short stories Animals At Night we have a fine set of tales all linked to the power and strangeness of the night.

‘Strangers’ is the opening tale with our main character we find collecting the body of her mother for a road trip to a unique burial ceremony. It’s an off-setting storyline but Booth weaves in the relationships of our main character with her mother, her daughter, her estranged best friend to create a short story that gives you generations of lives lived and relationships in various states of health. It’s a tale of grief and moving towards acceptance. Powerfully told and very memorable.

With ‘Cluster’ we start to see a recurring theme of motherhood. Our main character is now being kept awake at night by their baby and fears for it. Booth paints a picture of seeing a whole new side to neighbours, the natural world and the darker side of the people who lurk the streets. Danger, wonder, fear and menace go around her home every night. It’s a tale also exploring motherhood and learning to be constantly fearing for a child. I really enjoyed this one.

‘Forever Chemicals’ explores the pain of first love and revisiting it years later. We see our main character in their first love at uni that fizzles out but leaves a huge imprint on our narrator’s future action towards her ex. Ones which she finally has to face up to when meeting her ex-boyfriend in adulthood; an honest conversation about their life ensues at night. It’s a tale less of becoming enemies but more how sometimes we don’t understand each other even when we think we do; how love can impact our futures and also the power of knowing something is now settled so you can move on.

‘Animals at Night’ explores growing up and becoming a parent. Two university couples finally get a chance to meet each other with their babies for a night away. It’s the tale of realising you’re no longer who you were. Our main character is now incredibly fearful for her daughter and less bothered about having a drink or drug session with her friends. They’re both now in different places. Then a haunting image on a country road means she finds her impulses to protect are strange and powerful. It’s a tale of moving on to uncertain futures but knowing you cannot go back to who you were.

With ‘Tell me What you Like’ we have a tale of a woman whose life is now filled with contradictions taking a night trip by her car to a cottage. A freedom she has often craved. In a  flash-back montage of scenes we see her life and current situation unwind. She may have what she often wanted but there are some prices paid for it too. Subtle storytelling that really worked for me.

Then in ‘Transcendent Inadequacies’ we get a childhood tale of a nasty music teacher and his pupil who finally realises the games he plays on his students. It is well crafted revenge but also tells us a lot about our character’s own upbringing and why her mother is so keen she gets to the best school and start in life. The powerful do get their comeuppance and its i delivered with wicked humour.

‘Days Clean’ is about someone who is taking every day at a time. Resisting their inner urges and sometimes the choices for distraction are not always wise ones but they offer sometimes an escape for a few hours. But their survival day to day is the important thing we learn to understand why our character is doing this and we want her to have many days more of peace by the end.

With ‘The chrysalides’ we get a Pandemic tale of a young family in lockdown. Our main character discovers the neighbours she can see at night and inside the house  a small jar of caterpillars and their future is a metaphor for the who lockdown experience. Will the future be bright but last not long? One of my favourites in the collection.

The short but memorable ‘Intermittent Visual Disturbances’ gives us a tale of someone having to rely on others while they are not well and noticing what many of those people too have their own hurdles to manage yet they pay it forward. The joy of humans helping humans being kind makes this a very short powerful tale of hope.

Sour Hall is the more supernatural of the stories. A young farmer and her girlfriend start a new life on the family farm despite to win and there appears to be something always going wrong. A Boggart is often blamed. We get to explore these people’s lives, the hurdles they have to jump across and despite a fierce winter to battle though there is hope and love at the end. A fine tale to end the collection on

The entire collection was a delight for me and with our darker evenings all around us offers perspective on being human and the lives that may be going on all around us. Strongly recommended!