Concrete Fields - a collection of short stories by David Gaffney
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CONCRETE FIELDS LONG-LISTED FOR THE EDGEHILL PRIZE 2024!!!
“The main character in The Garages lives alone in Ian Curtis’s House in Macclesfield, and becomes intrigued to find out why a local man is obsessed with owning the entire row of nearby garages. His ultimate discovery is something unexpectedly thought-provoking and moving.”
Carol Morley, The Guardian
"David Gaffney’s stories are enchantingly strange, pleasingly perverse, fabulously entertaining and highly recommended." Alison Moore
 Concrete Fields David Gaffney 2023
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Haunting, funny stories that explore the theme of town versus country with a dark humour and a surreal spin. The countryside - what is it for? A paradise on earth where you can relax and get creative? Or an outdoor wool factory where every other house is an Airbnb and there are fewer trees than Camden. In his new collection of short stories David Gaffney explores the theme of town versus country through a number of different lenses, including his own experience of being brought up in west Cumbria then moving to Manchester. A creative residency on the coast of Scotland becomes weirder and weirder in The Retreat: ‘I’ve always had the feeling that the countryside has something against me and that one day it will take its revenge.’ In The Table, a recluse in Penrith uses mid-century furniture to lure city dwellers into a world of ‘depressed farmers with shotguns and bottomless pits of slurry that will swallow you so hard you'll never be seen again.’ And in The Garages the pressure of city living forces a man to become oddly obsessed with empty spaces. Often funny, often haunting, often profound, Gaffney uses dark humour and surreal characters to demonstrate a deep understanding of how places, urban or rural, can shape, influence and sometimes distort our lives. ‘People who like the countryside tend to believe in things that aren’t really there,’ says a character in The Country Pub. These are indeed stories about things that aren’t really there, and this is why they resonate with you long after you have stopped reading. Out now on Salt Publishing |
Reviews
"David Gaffney’s stories are enchantingly strange, pleasingly perverse, fabulously entertaining and highly recommended."
Alison Moore 2023
“The main character in The Garages lives alone in Ian Curtis’s House in Macclesfield, and becomes intrigued to find out why a local man is obsessed with owning the entire row of nearby garages. His ultimate discovery is something unexpectedly thought-provoking and moving.” Carol Morley, The Guardian
“This new collection contains some of David Gaffney’s best work and shows him experimenting in different ways. A table appears as a character and a hand starts talking to a head in another. At times the reader could be in Nikolai Gogol’s St. Petersburg or in pursuit of Ivor Cutler’s berserk leg. Some of the stories close in a puzzle, like Robbe-Grillet’s beach figures in “The Strand”, in a kind of endless loop. This is what the stories excel in, the play within and between genres, the disorientation of the reader.”
Richard Clegg 2023
"Utterly moving."
Des Lewis 2023
Concrete Fields, David Gaffney
Stephen Porter 2026
I picked this up from the splendid Left For Dead bookshop in Shrewsbury just after Christmas. 'Concrete Fields' is a superb modern short story collection which (loosely) examines the merits and disadvantages of both city and rural living.
There are tales which explore the city dweller's fear of the countryside (and the often unwelcoming nature of its inhabitants), and there are stories which examine psychological trauma - along with the effects of the abuse of trust and human good nature.
A brilliant collection, then, mixing wit, irony, old-fashioned good storytelling and social comment in its rich array of stories. Highly recommended.
Stephen Porter 2026
Read the full reviews here
Photo courtesy Edgehill Prize