Description
Unfamiliar Territory is the latest release from the Lowestoft Chronicle, a collection of short stories and poems which are bound together by the theme of travel through foreign lands. The works themselves are as disparate as the locations which inspire them. Ranging from the poetic to the meditative to the fascinated and fascinating, there is something within this book to appeal to many different styles of readers, whether they are frequent travelers or have never left their hometown.
Like many anthologies, the works can prove something of a mixed bag. While I enjoyed most of the works and some stood out from all the rest, some others felt like the bane of a short story reader: a set of beautiful words in which nothing particular happens. Some of the stories and poems are beautiful enough I hardly cared, but in others, I found myself wondering what the point might be, or finding that the point was made all too clearly.
What I found most interesting was a less obvious common thread, still related to travel. The unfamiliar territory of the title often refers to the foreign countries in which the various protagonists find themselves, but they just as often find themselves in unfamiliar territory within their own minds. These voyages, too, are beautifully and intimately written, often more intimately than the voyages into unfamiliar physical territory. Sometimes the physical voyage feels like a metaphor for the literal one; other times it feels more like a veneer, an excuse for internal exploration.
Once again, this proves to be a mixed bag. At times, the metaphors and veneers work well. At others, they make the physical territory feel thin and insubstantial, unimportant to the story as a whole.
My focus so far has been on the fiction, but the collection also has a substantial amount of creative nonfiction, and this is where I found it to truly shine. The creative nonfiction pieces have a mix of humor and wonder which the fiction pieces never quite reach, and which I enjoyed greatly. The fiction shows the wonder which can be in the world; the nonfiction shows that wonder along with a sense of humor which keeps the works grounded.
Unfamiliar Territory will likely appeal most to those who are already fans of the Lowestoft Chronicle’s work, though hopefully it draws a few new fans to the publisher as well. I’ll certainly be keeping my eye out for more of their books.