AM/PM by Amelia Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

PM:0

"There's no need for poetry," Andrew said. "I'm just here for my chair."

Well sit down and let me wax lyrical.

This book consists of 120 beautiful fragments wholes fragments of prose poetry prose, I don't know. They're beautiful. I love them. Four stars.

Amelia Gray, my imaginary cousin, I want to read everything that you have written and ever will.

I want to take your last name and share it with you.

I want to wear a tee-shirt with your image on it. You are that good.

Here is an example of what I mean, prose that could be re-engineered as poetry, or vice versa, even if there is no need for poetry any more:

"Martha: It makes me nervous.
Emily (reassuringly): It's normal to be nervous.
Martha: Great, I'm nervous and I'm normal."
She started to cry."

There are no more heroes any more. Only words. And music.

This book should be found everywhere, on every bedside table, but might remain hidden under the floorboards.

Or both.

AM:121

This little haiku
Is a symbol of my love
For you and your book.

PM:164

Like every other person in Ian's life, FM Sushi, his wife, with whom he shared a bed, thought that Ian only ever read one "currently reading" book at a time.

It sat on the bedside table next to his pillow. Right then it was something by Gene Wolfe.

But Ian had a secret.

One day, when FM Sushi was at work, he realised that one of the timber floorboards under his side of the bed was loose. He got a screwdriver from his toolbox in the laundry and gently managed to lift the whole board intact without splitting it. He shone a torch into the opening and tested its size with his fingers.

He had been reading "AM/PM" by Amelia Gray and, because it was a little book and he loved it, he wondered whether it would fit in his secret place under the bed. It did. He gently replaced the floorboard on his secret.

Each day, when FM Sushi was at work, he levered open the floorboard and read one story in the book and put it back.

Some things in your life are so important, you can't share them with anyone else.


View all my reviews