Whimsical defence mechanisms: Sail Away Land, by Ben Pester, reviewed
A spectre is haunting England in the surreal tales assembled in Ben Pester’s Sail Away Land, the follow-up to his debut collection Am I in the Right Place? (2020) and last year’s novel The Expansion Project: the spectre of tweeness. Confronted with scenarios involving nightmarish gatherings, paranormal entities and psychic electronic devices, his characters respond with a lobotomised, quaint strain of stoicism – the type that makes us say things like ‘It’ll come out in the wash’ when getting made redundant, and ‘Least said…’ when handed a terminal diagnosis. ‘You have left the grill on!’ repeatedly frets the title story’s nameless protagonist, like a Tony Hancock character, oblivious to the fact he is also apparently shrinking to the size of a rat.
