Minimum of Two

A collection of short stories from Western Australia's premier fiction writer, Tim Winton. Often held up as an example for aspiring writers and high school children (in Australia), I have previously read two of his novels and enjoyed them a lot.

This collection of short stories, however, was strangely unsatisfying. Around half of the stories feature recurring characters of Jerra and Rachel, although oddly they are not in chronological order - they may be in reverse order, I am not too sure. The other half of the stories feature other, unrelated characters.

Most of the stories seem to examine pride, loneliness, longing and losing. To me the best description is still unsatisfying. None of the stories seemed to have enough in them to have set up a situation, then resolved that situation - completion of a story.

This book, published in 1987 is near the start of Winton's career as a writer (three novels and another short story collection before this one),so perhaps he was still finding his way.

Three stars