"He was a magician but not a very good one": this is a book seemingly at first about an affair. The couple have just eloped, but I wouldn’t file this under "romance." They masquerade uncomfortably as father and daughter. There seems to be very little excitement and not much joy.
The story, we discover, is about a woman on a collision course, her life a "runaway train of sad events" heading towards a waiting desert. Namibia, specifically the Skeleton Coast, beckons from a childhood map, a "turbulent flight" away on a "long-ago upstairs landing."
This is somewhere she’s dreamed about, but again she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself. Things happen around her: life is out of her control.
We walk along a parched landscape of haunted trees and wrecked boats, the backdrop to a beautifully painful tale. This small volume is an intriguing story, one that pulls you in and demands to be read in one sitting. Gentle November is peppered with disturbing scenes and images and is skilfully haunting. We never find out the woman's name. This leaves a superb sense of unease, makes you feel like perhaps you weren’t paying her enough attention, and the story consequently lingers beautifully on, long after you’ve put the book down.
Lisa Williams has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She writes word-limited flash fiction, mostly drabbles - stories of exactly one hundred words. You can find her online @noodleBubble.
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