Name: The Lion in the Room Next Door
ISBN: 9780425179659

Merilyn Simonds

Episodes from a woman's life are reflected in this acclaimed collection of interrelated short stories from a sensational new talent. Richly layered . . . stories so solid they seem sculpted, yet so delicate they remain full of mystery.--Publishers Weekly.

The Lion in the Room Next Door

Ed Kay

The first three stories in this collection left me totally cold and disinterested. I almost gave up on the whole book.

But something about the next story really started to draw me in, and then I found myself enjoying most of the rest of the book as much as I had hated the start.

I'm still not sure what changed. My state of mind? Possibly. The subject matter? Probably. I didn't at all empathise with a young girl growing up in Brazil, or care for the early style which was almost 'magic realism'. But once the narrative began to take hold (the shape of an early romance, which then blossoms over subsequent stories through the marriage, divorce and taking a new lover) I was on firmer ground. I particularly loved "Taken for Delirium" which is a beautiful and heartbreaking meditation on living in the woods and communing with nature. At this point, I not only understood, but yearned to live this life.

Disappointed with the final chapter which seemed to return to the rather obscure and distanced tone of the first, but by this point I'd been mostly won over.