FIGHTING IT
Regi Claire
To visit Regi's author page, click here.With an Introduction by Louise Welsh
A woman revolutionary, a woman in prison, a husband seeking revenge, a child driven to sin – they are all ‘fighting it’, battling to retain their belief in themselves.No mere slices of life, the stories in this second collection by award-winning Scottish-Swiss author Regi Claire have the range and depth of whole novels. They give voice to men and women who seem otherwise condemned to suffer in silence and whose struggles we recognise as our own. Sometimes with humour, sometimes in despair they cry out, clamouring for our attention. Claire’s prose is edgy and vibrant and, whether set in the ice-cool beauty of the Swiss mountains, the heat of Tenerife, the urban frenzy of Paris, Zurich or Edinburgh, her tales are at once deeply disturbing and almost unbearably compassionate.
Praise for Fighting It:
'Her prose has a cut glass quality. Clear and crisp as Alpine air, it refracts the light at startling angles, illuminates the singular, the striking detail, turns a flashlight on the dark corners of the psyche, and manages not to flinch.' Alison Miller, Scottish Review of Books
'Claire's virtuosity lies in her range. Though she plays her characters out in quite a narrow emotional tonal space - right at that high-pitch, straining end of the scale - the scope of their identities and the settings she puts them in are breathtaking. While so many authors tend to stick to a particular subculture, Claire ... roams the length and breadth of Europe, taking in a French ambassador's wife, a German undertaker, a wealthy couple who live for their flowers and racehorse, a Presbyterian child in Dundee in thrall to her father's Bible; all ages, all classes. It is as if she is saying that wherever you come from, when we are up against a wall and fighting it, we are all similar animals. ... There is nothing ordinary about these tales. They are all extraordinary.' Vicky Allen, Sunday Herald
'In this always enjoyable collection, Claire’s representations of the variety
of human experience are spell-binding; you emerge from her spell slightly
dazed, senses well-exercised, for you too have been ‘fighting it’.'
The Edinburgh Review
'The stories in Fighting It are so finely wrought that it can be a surprise to realise how short some of them are. These are whole universes captured in a drop of water. Claire allows us access into the heart of lives and people unmet. And even though we may be very different from the individuals we encounter between these pages, we can gain a moment of shared humanity with them. ... This is a truly fabulous collection.' Louise Welsh
‘Louise Welsh calls Fighting It a “truly fabulous collection”, and I’d have to agree. For vivid insights into the human spirit under stress, I’d highly recommend Fighting It.’ Lisa Glass, Vulpes Libris www.vulpeslibris.wordpress.com
‘This is typical of Claire’s style: the everyday and the unpredictable mixed with confidence.’ Rozalind Dineen, Times Literary Supplement
‘Gripping, moving and disturbing (in the best possible sense of the word). I hesitate to use the word "brave" because it might sound patronising, but the courage [Claire has] in going into such unnerving places – places that are latent in us all – is daunting. … Hauntingly beautiful.’
Joyce Gunn Cairns MBE, artist
'These stories are both satisfying and exciting to read. Satisfying, in that often a surprising conclusion is reached (although no ending here is ever pat), and exciting because short stories can sometimes fail to take off. Or they take off and don’t land. Regi Claire knows how to play the tension perfectly though – she shows us how to "fight it"... Although these stories are about people stuck, albeit in situations of their own making ... the kind of life-enhancing moment Claire is so good at ... makes this collection such a rewarding read.' Sarah Salway, The Short Review.
For the full review, click here.
For an interview with Regi in The Short Review, click here.
For an interview on the 'Books from Scotland' website, click here: http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Authors/Regi-Claire/Fighting-It-Interview
Praise for Regi Claire:
‘Regi Claire is a writer of compassion and determination. Her stories are filled with the details of pain and physical bewilderment and leavened with tenderness.’ A. L. Kennedy
‘Sharp, intense and almost frighteningly perceptive.’ Lesley Glaister, Sunday Herald
‘What she certainly has is the storyteller’s gift.’ Edwin Morgan
‘Claire’s writing is taut yet supple, bursting with exotic images, not a single one of which seems superfluous. She’s sharp as a scalpel, and compassionate too. Instruct your bookseller to order one for you and a dozen for the shop.’ Nicholas Royle, Time Out
‘Never insipid, full of imagination.’ Times Literary Supplement
About Regi Claire
Born and brought up in Switzerland, Regi Claire now lives in Edinburgh with her husband, the writer Ron Butlin, and their golden retriever. Her mother tongue is Swiss German, but she writes in English. She has had three books published: Inside~Outside (shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award), The Beauty Room (longlisted for the MIND Book of the Year Award) and Fighting It. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, also in translation and on BBC Radio 4. She won The Edinburgh Review 10th Anniversary Short Story Competition, was a Cadenza prize winner, and has received Bursaries from Scottish Arts Council, Pro Helvetia and Thurgau Lottery Foundation, as well as a UBS Cultural Foundation Award. She is a creative writing tutor at the National Gallery of Scotland.
An extract from Fighting It
Fighting It
She was in the wire cage again, exercising like a rat in the wheel.
The late summer sun glared down into the yard, and most of the other women drooped in heaps on benches or lay sprawled on the grassy oval in the centre, dozing.
Stamp-stamp-stamp went Laura’s feet. The wire cage had been erected next to one of the tall surrounding walls, in the shade of a beech tree. The handrail was slick with sweat. Sweat runnelled down her cleavage, slithered over her stomach, greased her back. It dripped from the blonde stubble on her head, swamped her eyes. She wasn’t wearing any jewellery, not even her ear studs or the nose ring. They’d taken those away from her – just in case.
Glancing around the yard for an instant, Laura caught sight of a thin figure shambling about at the far end. A figure that reminded her of someone from Outside. But the face was turned away so she couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was a mirage; the sun was harsh and hot enough for that. She grimaced, then wiped the sweat from her eyes and concentrated on the workout.
Her black trainers were blurs on the treadmill. She’d cranked up the incline to 9% and upped the speed from the previous day. With hypnotic regularity the red numbers of the LED display flipped from running time to distance to running time … until they became meaningless smears.
Stamp-stamp-stamp went her feet, deep inside an imaginary forest. The pine needles on the floor were the colour of a fox’s pelt and their springiness bounced her on and on through the warm, woody air. The scent of resin was all around her. She felt cocooned within its golden transparency. Safe. It seemed to preserve her as something hard and enduring and – if left alone – quite harmless.
For a moment she felt almost happy.
That was the best Laura could achieve these days: a sensation of almost-ness, and she was careful to treasure it. Not too much and not too little – joy, rage, despair, love, hate. Bandit was her only indulgence. He received the surfeit of her love, never her hate. He was the reason she carried on with the chore of living.
The scent of resin was getting stronger with every stride and there was a rustle of wings now, velvety soft, as two blackbirds joined her, flitting along like shadows conjured from the undergrowth. A squirrel twitched its tail at her, chattering. No bad thoughts, it seemed to say. No bad thoughts. Sunlight slipped across her cheeks – a caress of sorts.
Stamp-stamp-stamp. Abruptly, the magic forest transformed itself into a sports ground and she was on a cinder track, speeding past other runners every so often. She could see them quite clearly. Smelt them on her very skin. The fat, knock-kneed women with slack mouths and flabby arms, hobbling rather than jogging along. Stupid women, forcing themselves on for the sake of vanity. The kind of women who painted their faces every morning, come rain, come shine. They were the ones she hated most. Mustn’t hate too much, must be wary, stay on an even keel. Undignified, weak and cowardly they were. Bump into any of them by accident, and there’d be a shriek and a fall. Scared wide puppet eyes would stare up at you…
Oh yes, you know that look – and the raised hands, the sweaty palms. Every night you see them. See the two ghost women crouched at the foot of your bed, one to the left, one to the right, with a gap in the middle where SHE should have been. Their voices rasp like flames over dry wood. They keep asking you something, keep pleading with you. Pleading and asking, they remain crouched there, thick red drops leaking from their bodies. Their pupils getting larger and larger. Their hands still raised. Twitching hands… No, you don’t want to see them. No! No!
We are grateful to the Scottish Arts Council for a grant towards the publication of Fighting It.
