Summat Else
(short stories set in England and Spain)
"A devastating debut collection of short fiction, encompassing a young working-class Englishman's coming of age, written with great humour and pathos."
Published 2004 (Porcupine's Quill)
"…a gloriously aromatic stew of comically thwarted desire."
Graham Harley, Literary Review of Canada.
"These deftly-compacted stories tracking Enoch Jones from babyhood to his twentieth year are sprinkled with mischief and wit. The writer's prose is smooth as polished stone. Lust is ever present. Birmingham's grittiness no less so. […] This is lively, exciting work. Summat Else is a fine book."
Leon Rooke
"The writing is stripped and clean and so spare it almost shines. The dialogue sparkles. […] Its seeming simplicity must have been hard won. Tester captures the gritty detail of England's Black Country with an evocative faithfulness which is convincing and extremely moving."
John Metcalf
Praise
'In these connected stories, narrator Enoch Jones guides the reader through his coming-of-age with a cockeyed charm that makes both the English Black Country and the bloodthirsty Barcelona of Franco's final days feel as real as one's own kitchen. With a novel's momentum, each story plunges us headlong into the next hair-raising stage of Enoch's life — Evensong pickpocket, reform school punching-bag, apprentice rent-boy — culminating in an epistolary tale with a cliffhanger ending that, somehow, completely satisfies. Tester's structural craftsmanship alone is dizzying, but it is Enoch's strength of character in the face of fascist gunfire, S & M dog collars and a pederast driving instructor, among other things, that ultimately makes this collection so winning. (And the paper it's printed on is really nice.)
Adam Lewis Schroeder
'These deftly-compacted stories tracking Enoch Jones from babyhood into his 20th year are sprinkled with mischief and wit. The writer's prose is smooth as polished stone. Lust is ever present, Birmingham's grittiness no less so. The collection as a whole mirrors the moon's arc and the sun's ascent. This is lively, exciting work. Summat Else is a fine book.'
Leon Rooke
'The writing is stripped and clean and so spare it almost shines. The dialogue sparkles. […] Its seeming simplicity must have been hard won. Tester captures the gritty detail of England's Black Country with an evocative faithfulness which is convincing and extremely moving.'
John Metcalf
'He brings an inquisitive and cosmopolitan eye to his art, layering the observations of the informed world traveler with poignant, sometimes hilarious scenes in which a character's past suddenly invades the present, creating personal upheaval and unexpected resolution.'
Richard Cumyn
'Like a skilful photographer, Tester makes visible the normally invisible moment when the soul shatters. He is a master of implosion.'
J.S. Porter
'Tester weaves politics, morality, pain, and humour into a complex and moving book. His narrative prose—syntax, dialogue, and phrasing—is quirky, fresh, surprising, idiomatic, and inventive. …Royston Tester makes us care. Read him."
Prairie Fire