- Published: 08/11/2018
- ISBN: 9781846277047
- Granta Books
- 224 pages
People I Wanted To Be
Gina Ochsner
From the Russian couple haunted by the ghosts of children they never had, to the man who buys a mynah bird in the hope of saving his marriage, these are people who feel that their lives are loose skins they’ve not quite grown into and perhaps won’t ever fit. The world they inhabit is one of half-forgotten dreams and unwhispered yearning. And yet each of them is about to embark upon a journey in which inspiration is found in the most unlikely places, reality is catapulted to the edge of the possible, and even the blackest despair can be illuminated by small, improbable miracles.
£7.99
Fantastical yet deeply human and intriguing stories
Erica Wagner, The Times
Gina Ochsner's exquisite new collection can be consumed in a sitting or two ... Highly recommended
Daily Mail
A beautiful, sensitive, frank book with a moving sense of the fragility of people's lives
Time Out
From the Same Author
The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
Gina Ochsner
In her very dusty provincial museum of fake exhibits lovingly crafted from cardboard, wire and glue, Tanya dreams of Russian art’s long colours and wonders when Yuri will stop fishing long enough to notice how she adores him, while she tries the zero-one-zero diet in order to meet Aeroflot’s maximum waist requirements for trainee cabin crew. When her boss at the museum gives her the vast responsibility of cultivating some potential benefactors from America, and persuading them to give their money to the very needy All-Russian All-Cosmopolitan City Museum, Tanya finds herself involuntarily enlisting all her neighbours in the scheme. But their shared hopes of riches and dreams of escape start to rot. And the rounded corpse of Mircha in the courtyard refuses to decompose, as the snow turns it into a hill, and its spirit takes flight around the apartments, dispensing more advice than anyone desires, goading the men, annoying the women, in a block where too many mothers and fathers are missing and too many memories lie stagnant on old battlefields.
