Connective Tissue _ Salt/22

Abstract artistic portrait of a woman with dark hair and colorful, textured background, featuring geometric white lines on her face. Includes text: 'Salt Modern Stories' and 'Jane Fraser Connective Tissue'.

This collection of short fiction aims to define the sometimes indefinable and give voice to those struggling to make sense of what life throws at them.

There are those who travel in a continuous loop on London’s underground and those who dance at night with the departed. A woman confronts herself in a bedroom mirror after decades of denial and a widow finds comfort in an osteopath’s consulting room. And then there is a strange creature who falls to earth; dreams and portents; crows and folklore and much more.

The stories are tragic and comi-tragic, but all reveal the strength and complexity of the human spirit. They bring poignant insights on grief, loss and longing and the depths and strangeness of the human psyche and how we manage to survive and just about cope.

“Separate but intricately linked stories, artfully told. Sinew, bone and blood unite vividly in gripping tales of male violence, women’s pain, regret and the ties that bind.”

Ruth McKee, The Irish Times

Reviews
You can read full reviews of Connective Tissue here:
Nation Cymru
The Irish Times
Amazon

You can order a copy of Connective Tissue from:
Salt | Griffin Books | Amazon | Waterstones

Podcast cover for BBC Radio 4's Short Works featuring a red speaker surrounded by flowers, birds, and insects, with the title 'Short Works' and the episode titled 'Soft Boiled Eggs by Jane Fraser.'

Soft Boiled Eggs, a short story from the collection, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of the Short Works series. The story is read by Sharon Haf Morgan.

“Jane Fraser’s Connective Tissue, a second collection that is subtle, nuanced, elegant, wise, and resonant. Don’t expect baroque plots or hot-button issues. These are stories of mothers and daughters and husbands and wives, and the ordinary matter of their lives. The language is clean and considered, doing its job unobtrusively, like a perfectly trained butler.”

Jo Lloyd, winner of the BBC Short Story Prize 2019, in Nation Cymru
“Immersive short stories full of small intimacies that become increasingly addictive. Jane Fraser is a superlative writer, quiet, subtle and Chekovian. She delves into life’s turmoils and tendernesses with skill and honesty and brings back, if not wisdom, then at least acceptance and at best understanding. All the pleasure of drifting in the sea on a fine day.”

Topher Mills, Poet, 5 star review on Amazon
“I loved Connective Tissue, a book so good it feels like your Greatest Hits Album. It feels darker, stranger and riskier than The South Westerlies, but there’s the same keen observation, feel for landscape, and empathetic understanding of the complexities of relationships. This is grown up writing in the best sense…”

Alan Bilton, Author and Publisher