Scar Tissue

The stories in Scar Tissue appear under the enigmatic headings of Space, Home, Away, Nowhere, Somewhere. Through a wide variety of characters and situations, Clare Morgan’s subjects include sex, death, relationships, the individual, the impossibility of relationships, parents and children, the passing on (or not) of things between generations. Many are informed by a sense of loss. The stories also explore contemporary themes of displacement, belonging, and identity, while Nietzsche and his philosophies also appear.

The stories, and the structure of the collection, relates ‘place’ (or estrangement) to a kind of existential discomfort. This resonates in the locations of the stories. The Space, Home and Somewhere sections are all set in Wales/the Marches; the Away and Nowhere sections are set in India, Paris, New England, Scandinavia, Spain and a transatlantic flight. Additionally, many of the stories are set in the uncertain, fluctuating realm where individual consciousness meets the hard materials of the world. The collection ends with a piece of autobiographical writing about the haunting of Morgan’s Welsh home, an ancient mill, which in turn provokes the reader to re-address the eleven stories which precede it.

Scar Tissue is a fascinating collection of well-crafted and engaging short stories by a writer who knows exactly what she is about. Readers will be reminded of the fiction of authors like Sally Rooney and Maggie O’Farrell.