Widow Fantasies - Hollay Ghadery - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Hollay Ghadery

GENRE: Short Story Collection

PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2024

RATING: 3.4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A collection of literary flash fiction focussed on women’s experiences in this male-dominated world. Lyrical writing, poignant situations, a bit too slice-of-life for my liking. The endings were somewhat hit-or-miss for me, but there’s no denying the impactful themes.

Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian poet-author writing in multiple genres. She has earlier penned a memoir and a poetry collection. This is her debut short story collection, with the tales being of flash fiction length.

This collection contains thirty-three stories, most featuring women in the lead. There’s no author’s note to introduce us to the theme of the collection but the blurb offers a good clue. The key word is ‘fantasies.’ This makes the theme sound light-hearted, but the stories are full of varying emotions, and often more moving than entertaining. The collection is highly literary in essence, keeping the narrative focussed on the character and their ruminations.

We often escape in fantasies when reality becomes too much to handle. The main characters in these stories follow the same habit, escaping into the realm of perceptions and assumptions and what-ifs while dealing with something unpalatable in their reality. This means that the structure of the stories is quite fluid, where a character’s contemplations diffuse across the imagination and the actual within a matter of moments. The fantasies often delve into an introspection of the past, so they go meandering across various timepoints as the character mulls over the present situation. Basically, if you need a traditional story-telling format, you won’t necessarily find that here.

Though a short book at just 92 pages, the proceedings aren’t quick. Each story creates a thought-provoking experience that cannot be zoomed through, though most of the tales are between 1-3 pages long. Often, the author confidently reveals only minimal details and leaves us to figure out the rest by ourselves. Sometimes, it's just one sentence near the end that changes your interpretation of the entire story. So it’s certainly not a book you can read at surface level.

Most of the stories depict girls and women in varying situations, facing a struggle the best way they can. This struggle could be something trivial or life-changing. I liked the concept of having women-centric stories, even when a woman wasn’t necessarily the central protagonist.

The author is a poet, so it is not surprising to see vivid and lyrical writing. The descriptions are such that even in such brief tales, it is easy to picture the scene. A few of the stories make use of her Iranian heritage as well – I liked these better as the cultural struggles felt more relatable.

Not all is hunky-dory, though. A few stories had too many characters at the start, which, considering the extremely short length of the stories, made them difficult to process. By the time I figured out who was who, the story was almost over. Some of the stories were too abstract for me, as they pushed the ‘slice of life’ approach to a whole new level. (I often struggle with this style, so this might be more of a ME problem.) The endings in many stories were a little abrupt for my liking. Slice-of-life always feels like a tiny episodic glimpse into someone’s life, but in such sudden cut-offs, it feels like the power supply got disconnected before we reached the end of an episode. Lastly, some of the stories had content that was not to my reading taste, though the stories themselves weren’t bad.

As always, I rated the stories individually. A majority of the stories fell within the 3-3.5 stars range, which means I liked them but they didn’t blow me away (often due to their endings.) These were my top favourites:

🌷 Jaws - I don't think I've ever read such a sweet pet story where the pet is a goldfish. Loved the introspective narrative and the ending. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌷 Waved - With such a casual title, I hadn't expected this poignant narrative. Loved the unusual first-person narration. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌷 Audience As Patio Furniture - Rarely does a story with only one character whom you would like to punch hard, work so well. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌷 Khoshgel - When a little girl did what she could to ensure that her mother really looked at her. Subtly brilliant! -⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌷 Well Enough Alone - A woman ponders over her options after a dentist discovers a potentially life-threatening nub on her tongue. Loved the development, adored the last line! - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌷 Purple Bears - How sometimes, imagination can help salve the wounds of reality. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌷 No Darling, You're So Much Better At Public Speaking - A story where I assumed one thing and it went in another direction altogether. Enjoyed how it surprised me. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌷 Tennis Whites - I hate white clothes for two specific reasons. This story covers one of them, so an easy winner for me. Loved the way this was written through a male perspective. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

All in all, this is the sort of collection that would work for a literary bent of mind, as long as the reader isn’t fussy about story lengths and happy endings. The tales are brief, but densely packed. So pick it up when you want something to ponder upon, not when you want something to relax with.

Recommended to those who enjoy literary slice-of-life writing in flash fiction lengths. This work is strictly for adult readers.

3.4 stars, based on the average of my rating for each tale.

My thanks to the author and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy of “Widow Fantasies”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.