In between mince pies and mulled wine I found time over Christmas to read “Retro Retro: Fictional Flashbacks” edited by Amy Prior. For this anthology of short stories, 16 writers have taken the theme of our collective obsession with the recent past and its culture.
As is often the case with short story collections, this is very much a mixed bag, but there are enough good stories in here to make it worth buying. Amongst the best are Nicholas Royle’s “Empty Boxes” about a man’s obsession with disused cinemas in London, Joyce Carol Oates’ “Strand Used Books 1956” about a chance meeting with Marilyn Monroe in a bookshop and Tony White’s “The Jet Set Girls” which recreates the gangster milieu of 1960s Soho.
It is available to buy from various Amazon Marketplace sellers for as little as 1p, which even with the postage and packaging costs still makes it under £3.
