Brief Reviews: Cold Toast by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

By Cole Beauchamp

It’s a surprise to find that Kathryn Aldridge-Morris’s stories were not conceived as a collection from the beginning, they are that cohesively tight and interwoven. Set in the 70s and 80s Britain, they whisk you into a world of perms and puberty, of cigarette smoke and cheating husbands, of the Speaking Clock and the Yorkshire Ripper. There’s an impressive range of forms here, from the list story “Dinner Party Classic Recipe” to breathless paragraphs like “Double Lives” and “Red Books” to stories driven by repetition like “The story you’ll never tell.” What she’s so good at is showing the tension of those near moments—the tension of what might happen in the pool in “Electric Storm” had me holding my breath—and the aftermath of moments just missed, like “Perpetual War: 1983” when the narrator’s obsession with 1984 runs alongside her parents’ drama, only revealed in the story’s last line. My own personal favourite is the opening story and Kathryn’s ode to the cover art by Tim Mara, “These boots are made for walkin’.” I have a penchant for platform boots, and Silver Boots Astrid is so brilliantly evoked. The whole collection is chock-full of great stories of women and girls, of what it feels like to be left behind and sometimes to exact revenge. It’s hard to beat Aldridge-Morris’ trademark mix of gritty reality, humour and hope.

Fiction chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 2025 – August on Island of Evia: Forest Fires
Aldridge-Morris’ website: www.kamwords.com