Morrigu and Other Stories

This volume gathers six pieces drawn from Avy’s papers. Stories in the truest sense, populated by figures, landscapes, weathers and fates. They form a natural companion to the apocryphal texts, invented books and visionary monologues that made Brantley’s name, a selection of which I’m preparing as a separate volume. What makes this collection particularly special is that its structure was, in essence, Avy’s own invention. Among her papers, I discovered a brief, untitled frame story – now published here as Ms Wintering – with a single instruction in the margin: this is a frame story for a collection.

The piece introduces us to a nurse, four days into her post at a psychiatric institution, handed the first of “many” notebooks written by an institutionalized author. The nurse is warned that these stories “aren’t really her stories anymore.” The frame ends as she begins to read. I’ve honoured Brantley’s intention by leaving this opening frame open. Everything that follows may be read as the contents of those notebooks. No closing frame survives among the papers, and the explanation promised is never delivered. I’ve resisted the urge to supply one. Some doors are better left ajar.