Changes

|title= Vertigo

|author= Joanna Walsh

|date= March 2016

|isbn= 978-1908276803

The short stories in Joanna Walsh's collection have the overall effect of disparate streams of consciousness of a woman laying bear her very soul, whilst often going about seemingly mundane activities of the ordinary and every day. The narrative voice appeared to me to be the same woman speaking throughout, playing different roles, though I'm not sure this was meant to be the case. The style of the stories is that of short vignettes, mostly written in a modernist, stream of consciousness style. Sometimes, the prose appears almost poetic.

As I said before, there is an over-arching sadness resonating throughout these stories, peppered with some lucid moments of prose. As I read, I felt an unnerving sense that the woman narrator was going to fall through the cracks and disappear altogether. And I think this was probably Walsh's intention. There is a feeling of hopelessness, of passivity on the part of the narrator, and therefore, the role of women in society. Though I read through the stories quickly and in sequence, I think it will be a book I return to again, and have a feeling Walsh's prose will resonate in new and different ways on each reading.

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