In Philip Hensher’s introduction to his recent two-volume Penguin Book of the British Short Story, he wrote of his determination to “not include famous writers on the basis of achievement that, in reality, lay elsewhere”. In the same spirit, although Hensher is capable of very good, sometimes brilliant writing, I can’t say much of it is on show in his new collection of short stories.
The frustrating thing about Tales of Persuasion is that most of the stories are overlong, and it is easy to identify the fat that should have been trimmed. Take, for example, “My Dog Ian”, about an affair between an English museum administrator and a visiting Italian professor. It has interesting things to say about hindsight, and the moments that, surprisingly, turn out to be the most important in your life. But a good 15 pages in this almost 50-page story – pages in which a dull Australian theology professor and his wife hold forth about the vagaries of academic progression and the size of milk cartons – will test the patience of many readers.
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