I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

 

I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere / Anna Gavalda
trans. from the French by Karen L. Marker
NY: Riverhead, 2003, c1999.
193 p.

I picked up this slim collection of short stories from my own bookshelves this week, and was able to read it pretty much straight through. Anna Gavalda's style is fast moving and engaging, with a casual style and language choices. 

There are 12 stories in this book, many of them dealing with love and romantic longings in one way or another. Either the lack of such, or the beginnings of romance. But they aren't really about love as much as loneliness, belonging, or meaning. The stories are similar but have some notable differences -- from one in the second person to the closing story, which is about a writer who can't get published, and the character mentions her time spent writing the previous story in this collection, Clic-Clac. Very meta, but still entertaining. 

There are a couple of stories that turn dark, not in a gory way but in a very sad and terrible way, as with 'Lead Story', in which a travelling salesman finds out the consequences of his bad driving the next morning. Or 'Pregnant', about a woman experiencing pregnancy loss. It's not all light in this book.

But it was a great read, I appreciated encountering this narrative voice; there was enough variety to keep me reading, and some strong and memorable characters. It's one of her older books, and I think I may pick up some of her more recent writing to check out now.