Sudden Traveller by Sarah Hall review – powerful and unsettling

Women contemplate death and punish abusive men in seven highly imaginative storiesDeath stalks the pages of Sarah Hall’s latest collection. In seven lyrical, highly imaginative tales, the novelist and former winner of the BBC national short story award explores grief, mortality, female rage and rituals, both ancient and new.The opener, M, in which a female lawyer wreaks vengeance on abusive men, immerses us in Hall’s fantastical world. The writing is luminous from the first page: “Creatures of flight have put themselves away, under the eaves, down chimneys; raptors are tucked behind bevelled glass spires.” As the protagonist adopts a different physical form – she sprouts wings and flies – she visits abusers and punishes them: “Accident. A broken neck. And no postmortem to reveal the delicately evacuated heart.” Continue reading…
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