bryonydoran
The Sand Eggs
Short stories by Bryony Doran
A young woman is thrust into a foreign culture, a sister is excluded by widowhood, an older woman returns to a once familiar land. Bryony Doran’s short stories carry a note of seductive isolation.
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The Sand Eggs begins and ends in Turkey, the first story with the hope of marriage and the last after the relationship has ended. Doran leads the reader by the senses through the arc of life’s experiences in a gallery of intricately-crafted interactions.
Folklore, tales within tales within tales, the inexpressible and the humanity we share between cultures and the ages incubate in Doran’s lyrical prose. These ten short stories hatch one after the other, bringing life and death to stark, poignant moments, in which Doran delicately sketches out for us what can be exquisite and yet unbearable about being human.
– Ruby Soames
“Written with the same unflinching compassion that marked Bryony Doran's impressive debut novel, The China Bird”.
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- David Swann on The Sand Eggs
[Peach Image by Nancy Lehrer]
 ExcerptExcerpt from 'Babaanne' – a short story from The Sand Eggs. Photo: Nancy Lehrer http://www.inancyimages.com |  SE Front cover |
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 Readings from The Sand EggsBryony Doran reading from 'The Slighted Piper' – a short story from The Sand Eggs . |  Radio SheffieldBryony Doran talks with Paulette Edwards about her short story collection, The Sand Eggs, on Radio Sheffield. |
Reviews
"Intricately crafted, stark, poignant moments"...
'Bryony Doran, begins and ends in Turkey, the first with the hope of marriage and the last, after the relationship has ended. Doran leads the reader by the senses through the arc of life’s experiences in a gallery of intricately-crafted interactions. Folklore, tales within tales within tales, the inexpressible and the humanity we share between cultures and the ages incubate in Doran’s lyrical prose. These ten short stories hatch one after the other, bringing life and death to stark, poignant moments when Doran delicately sketches out for us what can be exquisite and yet unbearable about being human.'
- Ruby Soames, Seven Days to Tell You
"Strangers removed from those around them by language and relationships"...
‘Travellers and strangers dominate Bryony Doran’s collection of short stories. Strangers removed from those around them by language and relationships – from the woman visiting her husband’s foreign family to the sister pushed out by a carer. Do we alienate ourselves? Or do we misinterpret the signs around us?'
– Yvonne Barlow, Hookline Publishers
"Unflinching compassion"...
"Written with the same unflinching compassion that marked Bryony Doran's impressive debut novel, The China Bird."
–David Swann, The Privilege of Rain
"Rare glimpses of stifling family life"...
"Gives us rare glimpses of stifling family life seen from the eyes of a young English woman who is hovering watchfully on the edge."
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– Berlie Doherty, White Peak Farm
"The self-imposed exile of fear"...
"Alienation takes many forms... explicit here in a single red shoe, symbolic by the shape of an egg in the sand, the social exclusion of sudden illness or accident, the headscarf of a cultural divide, the loss of identity and a wish and grasp for change that finds any life better than a void... and the self-imposed exile of fear."
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– Bill Allerton, The Fox and the Fish