The South Westerlies - Softcover

Similarly, Jane Fraser maps out the edge of north Gower in this supremely confident debut collection with its “farmhouses limewashed in the vernacular style,” its persistent grey rains and the dominant southwesterly winds which bonsai the hedgerow trees and equally shape the stubborn characters who work the land hereabouts. So many stories are shored up by fine, nuanced landscape-writing such as “Just in Case” which presents the reader with the burrows “brushed with the burnished bronze of sunrise and the conical dunes, a lunar landscape, sharply defined and stark with shadow that will lift with the rising sun.” Lovely stuff, and there’s lots of it but always balanced by shadow, the darkness seeping in like damp.

One of those books that arrives like a surprise, unexpected, a bolt from the blue, and knocks you back on your heels with the pleasure of reading it. A terrific debut short story collection.

4/4 Fraser is a consummate short story writer. Each story conveys an aspect of life on the Gower; they are succinctly told, not a word wasted, and they are emotionally charged. They are simple tales beautifully told, sometimes utilising the lyrical Welsh language, they are layered and nuanced. Small moments that somehow make a vast landscape of human experience. This feels like a story from the heart, something of the place and people where Jane Fraser lives is conveyed to the reader.

Fraser’s collection swells and falls with the tide, offering very human insights into many different aspects of untold – but very much lived – narratives. Every reader will find truth at least somewhere in these stories, though all share the same rocky piece of coastal Wales. The tales cycle through failing marriages, tragic loss, lifetimes of quiet suffering and pivotal moments for both the young and the old.

Fraser’s debut, The South Westerlies, a collection of 18 short stories set mostly in and around Gower, South Wales, is rife and woven with careful detail and design. I could ramble and try to find a multitude of words to describe it, but ultimately, the collection is a joy to read for all those who deeply love intricate prose. A writer who understands their setting so well – as Fraser does of Gower – each story is acute in its texture.

The South Westerlies is an attempt to know place (Gower) through the creation of a collection of short stories. Place is not a cosmetic backdrop, but an affecting agent in the lives of a wide cast of fictional characters. The collection is unified by the tone of the prevalent dank south-westerly wind that blows across the peninsula, the UK’s first designated area of outstanding natural beauty. However, the author chooses to let her gaze fall on the downsides of a much vaunted tourism destination and a place that is too beautiful, perhaps, for its own good.