The Beautiful Indifference

The Beautiful Indifference is a concise and intense collection of seven short stories, in which Hall does not waste a word in her exposition of female strength and sexuality. The opening story, 'Butcher's Perfume', shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2010, is told by a teenage girl - naïve in comparison to the real subjects of the story, her rough friend Manda and her notorious traveller family who breed horses in the Cumbrian countryside. Next up is the title story, which features a bolting horse injuring innocent passers-by as the climax of an illicit meeting in a hotel room. 'Bees' and 'The Agency' are different in that they have city settings - perhaps my favourites because of this - but no less erotic and explicit. In the former, the tone is sad and haunting, heartbroken - but also strong: a wife who has fled her farmer husband's sexual, emotional and physical abuse, taking sanctuary in a friend's empty house, taking time to lick her wounds and figure out what to do with her life, in a hot, sticky London. 'The Agency' positively revels in the carnality of a middle-England housewife's visit to the big smoke, but then Hall knows not to push it - her writing always pulls back at the right time to leave you with an overall feeling that you're in the hands of a craftsman who knows the true power of the odd moment or a tiny detail left to the reader's imagination or assumption.

Sarah Hall portrays in her latest collection an array of complex, contemporary women - not necessarily all likeable to every reader, but all intriguing and recognisable. This theme of female strength and confidence is interwoven with the elegant descriptions of landscape and animals throughout these tales of modern warfare, with the result being a very intense and rewarding offering.