My little sister has recently got into writing and the first two things I did were to give her my copy of Judy Budnitz’s Flying Leap and a list of basic dos and don’ts.
Top of this list was to avoid clichés, and I explained verbally that whether it meant hurdling over them or slicing through them like a ninja, she should never accept them in her writing. Since reading this collection of Budnitz’s, I’ve felt that it’s better to go for totally weird than to stay safe, an idea I still happily champion.
Flying Leap is a collection of short stories which are individually and collectively so bizarre that all you can do is roll with Budnitz’s incredible imagination. You will find yourself rewarded for doing so, whether you are a writer or just an avid reader, and for that reason I seriously recommend this book. It’s entertaining and different, a genuinely refreshing read.
The stories are flashes of brilliance, each immediately situating you in a new world with throwaway sentences such as ‘The man in the dog suit whines outside the door’ (p. 1) and ‘My little sister went off to college and caught leprosy’ acting as hints of the weirdness you can expect to follow (p. 177). It’s a no-nonsense, flying leap into about two-dozen different settings, as extra-ordinary as an apocalyptic wartime suburbia and as mundane as a hospital waiting room.
‘Scenes from the Fall Fashion Catalog’ employs framing devices, structural irony and cliché subversion, the perfect example of how Budnitz makes humble use of literary techniques to produce her humorous, disgusting, and enthralling snippets of unreality. I first picked up this gem over six years ago and it remains one of the strongest short story collections I have ever read. Any other fans out there?
Budnitz, Judy, Flying Leap (London: Flamingo, 2000)
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