From Far Around They Saw Us Burn

by Alice Jolly

Overview

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn is the eagerly awaited first short story collection from Alice Jolly, one of the most exciting and accomplished voices in British fiction today.

Words begin to lose their meanings, flaking off into air like moths. Friendships cultivated over a lifetime fall apart in testing circumstances. What does the stranger with yellow eyes really want?

The extraordinary range of work gathered here is united by a fascination with how everyday interactions can transform our lives in unpredictable ways. These are stories of lonely people, outcasts and misfits, and the ghosts that inhabit our intimate spaces. The result is a compelling, arresting and, at times, devastating collection – not least in the title story, which was inspired by the tragic true events of the 1943 Cavan orphanage fire.

Written with an exemplary eye for detail and an intimate understanding of the complexities of human nature, Jolly's collection builds up towards the ultimate question: what is revealed of us when we peel away the surfaces, and is it enough?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789651621
Publisher:	Unbound
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright. She won the 2014 V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize with one of her short stories, ‘Ray the Rottweiler’, and her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns won the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. She has published two novels with Simon & Schuster – What the Eye Doesn’t See and If Only You Knew – and four of her plays have been produced by the professional company of the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. Her novel Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile, published by Unbound in 2018, was long-listed for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Her latest novel, Between the Regions of Kindness, was published by Unbound in 2019. In 2021, Jolly was awarded an O. Henry Prize for her short story ‘From Far Around They Saw Us Burn’. She lives in Gloucestershire, UK.

Table of Contents

Ray the Rottweiler - 1 

Keep Right on to Eternity Road - 13 

Frog Warning - 19 

Big Hugs and Kisses - 31 

Burn Before Reading - 37 

Safe Passage - 49 

All the Places that I Have Not Seen - 57 

Here’s to the Hole that Never Heals - 65 

Mrs Hopper Is Waving Her Arms - 83 

We All Know Mr Jones - 91 

For You, Hannah - 103 

The Last House on the Marsh - 109 

Smooth and Sleek - 125 

The Stop - 133 

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn - 141

Acknowledgements - 155 

A Note on the Author - 157 

Supporters - 159

Editorial Reviews

"I was so impressed by From Far Around They Saw Us Burn. The gift of looking at ordinary life slant-eyed to see what is strange, sadistic, kind, loving or moral is a rare one. Its characters are so vulnerable, yet often unexpectedly compassionate or resilient, transfixed by Jolly’s cool, elegant prose. It’s well worth reading, and a real achievement." — Amanda Craig, novelist, short-story writer and critic

"It is this fearlessness, this indefatigable digging into human behaviour to reveal the uncomfortable truths of our lives, that gives Jolly’s writing real weight. In these stories, she takes on the bored and the lonely, even the perverts, the awkward and the bad. Where a less wise writer might have produced monsters, Jolly, with tenderness, finds their souls." — The Guardian

From the Publisher