if there is no shelter (Novella-in-Flash)

A remarkable story of a woman’s life in an unnamed city in the aftermath of a series of earthquakes. It’s written with claustrophobic, relentless and urgent conviction. What’s most compelling is how the story is gleaned mostly through flashbacks, as though, like the city’s buildings, it’s been broken into fragments and we are picking our way through rubble. Gradually, like rescue workers, we uncover the situation of a hospitalized husband, a lover lost to a building’s collapse, and the tender domestic bonds the woman shares with her father and his colleague. This is a dark, oppressive story but, through it, the writer explores how humanity responds to crisis – and has produced a metaphor for our own times.
~Michael Loveday
Tracey Slaughter relates her story of guilt and grief in breathtakingly luminous fragments. These postcards from the red zone – brutal, beautiful – are a lament for what is lost, but also a reminder of what we can salvage when everything shatters. An extraordinary work; you will feel its aftershocks far beyond the final page.
~Catherine Chidgey