The lady with the laptop and other stories

The Lady with the Laptop is a prize winning collection (Jewish Quarterly Award for Fiction and PEN Silver Pen Award for Fiction) of short stories by British writer Clive Sinclair. Sinclair himself was chosen in 1983 as one of Britain's best 20 young novelists. He has several novels to his credit, as well as short story and essay collections. This is the first of his work that I have read. It is hard to hang a label on the short story style in this collection. Sinclair is (literally) all over the map, with characters roaming the globe from Mexico to Sweden and finally ending the collection with a story set in the (semi) imaginary land of Ashkenazia. The tone is quirky, often ironic and there is a thematic focus on issues of conception and mixed heritage. His style brings the Kate Atkinson short stories to mind just a little bit-- something about the combination of surrealism and the use of character voice. I received this collection as a gift, and if I had to choose for myself I think that I would have started with a Sinclair novel first. There was a lot to like about the collection, but I found myself frustrated at times with the stories themselves. The idea often seemed to skip away before the story was really done with itself. I had trouble finding a sustained beat and I have the feeling that I would get more of what I liked about the writing in a longer piece. The Lady with the Laptop should appeal to readers of intelligent fiction with a taste for playfulness. Do not let my hesitation about the form persuade you against the book, particularly not if you are specifically a short story reader.