FOURTEEN DAYS A COLLABORATIVE NOVEL
MARGARET ATWOOD AND OTHERS
Chatto & Windus, 384pp, £20
Boccaccio had the idea first when he wrote his Decameron in the mid-14th century, in which ten young characters flee plague-stricken Florence and gather to relate stories.
Mirroring our own Covid times, Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston marshalled 36 American and Canadian writers to contribute stories. A group of residents locked down in a down-at-heel Manhattan apartment block meet nightly on the roof, drink aperitifs, socially distance and spin yarns for each other.
‘Ghost narratives vie with tales of lost love, shaggy dog stories with the defiantly quotidian, gallows humour with the sweet and sentimental; and each of the residents’ stories reveal, whether they intend it or not, something about themselves,’ said Alex Clark in the Guardian. The book becomes a ‘kind of jigsaw puzzle’ which resulted in ‘an immensely enjoyable product of an immensely unenjoyable time. Fourteen Days is lively, freewheeling and, with its skilfully paced denouement an impressive achievement.’
Rob Merrill in the Independent, enjoyed it too. ‘There are lengthy jokes, a smattering of horror, some nonfiction, even romances, poetry and parables. Befitting their oral delivery in the book, they sort of wash over you as a reader.’ These tales are ‘proof that the stories we leave behind are what makes us human.’
Jessa Crispin, writing in the , wasn't convinced. ‘At its best, is an offbeat collection of flash-fiction.’ She concluded that the writing of the stories
