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Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't

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Stand up comedian Josie Long's short story collection came as a surprise, there is nothing in the way of an upbeat tone, instead what you get is an astute and observational eye on the darker and more unsettling aspects of life. Right now, much of the comedy scene’s energies are focusing on what to do about Edinburgh Fringe’s inexorable slide into unaffordability.

It worked in my favour a bit to have people think I was unusual and not just neurodivergent,” she says, “and it was nice for me to feel that, too. The last story, in particular, felt very personal as the narrator reflects on bringing children into the world as it is today. There is an overarching theme of female anxiety, especially felt in the story where the young woman meets up with her ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t relate to the majority of the characters. All told, much of this is reasonably readable (thanks, Lady Margaret, Oxford) but at the same time some stories just seemed to be taking me nowhere other than the skip button. But now, she’s also siphoned some of her complicated feelings about leaving London into a new book of short stories, Because I don’t know what you mean and what you don’t.

Long's characters are desperate and in deep, deep trouble, dealing with everything from social alienation to a full on apocalypse. The "neighbourhood pandemic WhatsApp group" story is memorably odd - at first I thought I was reading about a future egg-shortage dystopia, because who goes on that much about a single egg? There are stories here that are experimental and cutting, and a little more of that would be welcome.

The new show, Re-Enchantment, covers her turning 40, having her second child, moving to Glasgow and getting diagnosed with ADHD. From a woman who sees an ex-partner on a poster and defaces it, to another inundated by online gossip and gripes, to a guru slash influencer slash con-artist, these are all fractured individuals who are “just about managing” to deal with relentless reality. And then there’s another one about a kid in a violent home where it’s mostly hidden and in my life I had experiences of living in a stressful environment, shall we say, and writing it had a kind of nightmarish quality for me. Others were quite hard to follow and just as you were getting into the swing of the story, it finished.The last story, I don’t know was also not too bad but again I don’t know (hehe see what I did there) why? Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Part of the strategy seems to be to insist that this is not “made up stuff”, but is happening to real people in the real world. I have a strong memory of writing a story about a cat that used to sneak out at night and sing cabaret but it never finished. I'd highly recommend Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't, especially if you're after a dark and intriguing collection of short stories which make you think.

They’ve usually got fancy covers or clever titles, and I’m often drawn in by the promise of all the different themes they’ll cover in seemingly few pages. Like with most collection there were some stories that I enjoyed more than others but as a whole I really enjoyed and was captivated by this one. If you choose the Book + In-Person Audience option, this will include a signed copy of the featured book which you can collect from the venue on the night of the event.So, “Forgetting” uses quotes from the activist Jonathan Moses, “The Patron Saint Of Lost Causes” is prefaced by a snippet from Greta Thunberg, and another uses Instagram messages from two sources, both about coercive control. The lack of autonomy for the narrator in stories such as the Kafkaesque “Just An Informal Chat” and the quietly heart-breaking “Grandad” is another recurring theme. It was going to be about a woman whose ex-boyfriend shows up in her small community and it f*** her life up. By the last two stories, set after and then back during the current collapse, I really could have gone for something jolly.

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