Sudden Traveler: Stories

Written by Sarah Hall

Narrated by Mary Jane Wells

“Sarah Hall is one of those rare writers whose short fiction has the same luminosity as her novels. But the short form allows her more room to probe and roam, to experiment with form, to sink her fingers into the earth.”—The Observer (London)

Featuring her signature themes of identity, eroticism, and existential quest, the stories in Sarah Hall’s third collection travel far afield in location and ambition—from Turkish forest and coastline to the rain-drenched villages of Cumbria.

The characters in Sudden Traveler walk, drive, dream, and fly, trying to reconcile themselves with their journeys through life, death, and love. Science fiction meets folktale and philosophy meets mortality.

A woman with a new generation of pacemaker chooses to shut it down in the Lakeland, the site of her strongest memories. A man repatriated in the near east hears the name of an old love called and must unpack history’s dark suitcase. From the new world-waves of female anger and resistance, a mythical creature evolves. And in the woods on the border between warring countries, an old well facilitates a dictator’s downfall, before he gains power.

A master of short fiction, Sarah Hall opens channels in the human mind and spirit and takes us to the very edge of our possible selves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062959256

Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria. She is the prizewinning author of six novels and three short story collections. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award, Edge Hill Short Story Prize, among others, and the only person ever to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice. 

Reviews for Sudden Traveler

[reallifereading · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“We are, all of us, sudden travelers in the world, blind, passing each other, reaching out, missing, sometimes taking hold.”

Reviewing a collection of short stories isn’t an easy task. With a few exceptions, short story collections tend to feel like they need to be read over a longer time than it takes to read a book. For example, read one story, take a break and go read something else. Then come back to another story after that breather.

And in a collection such as this slim volume by Sarah Hall, a lot of breaks are needed, as the stories take on such varied settings, some weird and otherworldly and a bit experimental, some more rooted in the every day. Is that why the title is such? That as we read the stories, we are, too, “sudden travelers”, having to switch our perspectives completely?

For these stories are set in Turkish forests, Cumbrian villages, some that seem more like dreamscapes with weird transformations.

There is no doubt that Hall is a great writer. The stories are full of beautiful writing. For myself, as I am not much of a reader of more experimental turns, I was more drawn to her more ‘real’ stories like Orton and, especially the penultimate story, Sudden Traveler. And her writing pulled me in deep to those stories, tears falling, even, for one of them.

So while I stumbled during a couple of stories, unsure of where these pieces were leading me, the end result was worth it.

[mahsdad · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I got this from the Early Review program in exchange for an honest review. Honestly this one just didn't work for me. My half-star isn't so much about the quality of the work, its my indication that I didn't finish reading it. I just couldn't connect with these stories and after the first couple, I decided to Pearl-rule it, and put it back on the shelf. Your mileage may vary.

[albertgoldfain · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stylized stories that are often thick with symbolism. The title story is probably the best. Unfortunately the narrative interest in most of the stories is only fleeting. This was disappointing since I really fell into the story Sarah Hall built for "The Electric Michelangelo".

[jnmegan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sudden Traveler is a collection of seven short stories by award-winning Sarah Hall, whose short fiction has been justly described as luminous and erotic. This small sampler demonstrates her flexibility with styles and subjects that vary from the deeply moving and accessible to the more obscure and elusive. Interwoven in each piece is a recurrent theme of women’s experience in snapshots of important stages of life, both as it is perceived by the women themselves and by men who can only guess about them from a remove. Some of the stories feature fantastical elements with prose that is heavily metaphoric and lyrical. Others are more realistically grounded and are thereby starker in their depictions of violence and physical frailty. As with all collections, some of the stories are stronger than others, and a few cross the border into pretentiousness with Hall’s sometimes excessive use of perplexing symbolism. Still, Sarah Hall is obviously a wonderful and creative writer with a strong message and the skill with which to convey her point of view. Sudden Traveler is a nice short introduction to her work and will encourage an open-minded reader to seek out her other offerings.Thanks to the author, Custom House/William Morrow, and Library Thing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

[seongeona · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A few short stories that are more like sensations, very stream-of-consciousness, inner thoughts. Most seem set in Turkey or thereabouts, for some reason, and are focused on upper classes. Travel theme pertains to change of one sort or another. I enjoyed the first story "M" which was mysterious, sensual, surprising, powerful, and freeing. The second story, "The Woman the Book Read," was more like a simple and unremarkable sentence drawn out into excruciatingly endless and unnecessary descriptions. The same with the third story, "The Grotesques," which, unlike the second story, didn't even lead me to believe it was going in a different direction. "Who Pays?" was the most enjoyable for me, being exotic, atmospheric, mysterious, magical, powerful, maybe even vengeful. "Orton" was once again a simple sentence drawn out overly long and detailed to the point of annoyance. We know what will happen from the start but we don't care. "Sudden Traveler" is much the same and whilst it is the story from which the title of the collection comes, I felt the first story more thoroughly captured the essence of both "sudden" and "traveler." Finally, "Live That You May Live" is alive with color and movement and every fairy tale under the sun as a metaphor for what we hope/dream/yearn for our children, or at least in a quiet moment whilst we gaze at them sleeping and wonder what will become of them.I received my copy from the publisher, free of charge, via LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for my honest review.

[shadow123_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A perfectly cromulent, but not outstanding, collection of short fiction.Those who read for plot are going to be sorely disappointed here - these stories are about exploring language and identity and are of the sort where people do a lot of sitting around and thinking about things instead of doing them. Which I often love, and which can work really well, if the writing is great - but the writing here is only okay. A book like this relies on beautiful prose and stunning turns of phrase, and I didn't find those here. But it's an okay book that I'm sure will find fans.

[devlindusty · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I totally had mixed feelings reading this book of short stories. I am not usually a fan of short story collections bit as I got deeper into the book I absolutely fell in love with the variety of stories.

[theportports · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to fall into this collection of stories, but,sadly, I struggled. I'm not sure why, as this book is right up my readerly alley, but, nonetheless, I finished it with more relief than was probably warrented. I think it may be more appropriate to those more acclimated to the short story form. I want to like short stories, but too often these stories seemed too nebulous, as if in the process of making the story short something vital got left unsaid.

[sanyamakadi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that is read as if through layers of gauze. The words are understandable, but the meaning and context starts off fuzzy. Sometimes as the story progresses layers of gauze are removed, making the story, or the characters, or the connections between each, more clear, and sometimes by the end of of the story all of the gauze has been removed and everything makes sense. But not always. I am not a huge fan of this type of writing, that leaves me feeling cloudy and muddled by the end, but I am still giving it four stars because (1) the writing was superb; and (2) for the stories that I liked, I liked a lot. The two I liked the best were "Orton" and "The Woman the Book Read." "Orton" was the only story (in my opinion) which was written with all the gauze lifted from the beginning. While the plot was still fantastical, the writing was clear and the reader could easily follow the who, what, where, and why. "The Woman the Book Read" started out fuzzy, and stayed that way through most of the story, but towards the end it was literally as if the reader could see one piece of gauze lifted at a time, as with each sentence the characters and their relationships and history became clearer, until all was understood and the story ended.

[hairball_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Calling Sudden Traveler a sideways #metoo revenge collection would be really reductive, but not entirely inaccurate; the first piece set the tone in such a way that it made me look at even the more (seemingly) anodyne pieces in a different light. Or perhaps I kept waiting for a violent punch line at the turn of every page. The overarching violence of the stories: men wanting things from women that the women don't wish to give. In other words: the usual story, but phantasmagorically told.

[gryphon8kl · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to find much to say about this collection of stories, largely because most of them can be summarized as 'character sits around having a not particularly interesting or unusual flashback while nothing much happens in the present, then the story ends in a way that's presumably supposed to be symbolic or significant.' Even in the stories where something happens, the way the stories are written either make it unclear just what is going on half the time or significant details are missing from the story. As an example of the latter, the book flap describes one story with 'And in the woods on the border between warring countries, an old well facilitates a dictator's downfall before he gains power,' but nothing in the story itself marks the character in question as a potential dictator.There's an audience for this book, I'm sure, but I'm most definitely not it.

[seeword · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's rare that I read a book of short stories and don't find at least one that I really like. Sadly, I didn't like any of the seven in this collection. The blurb says "Science fiction meets folklore and philosophy meets morality." I thought that sounded intriguing but for me the "meeting" was like a bad blind date--I couldn't wait for it to end.I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program.

[kadia-722203 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program.The seven short stories in this book delve deeply into the inner thoughts of the main character in each story. The thoughts are often disturbing - despair, a mother's death and a child's innocence, revenge for the taking of innocence, revenge for the violence visited upon women and taking control of the future.The writing is beautiful and magical - heartbreak, pain, depths of sorrow - along with birds that will never fly in this world, deathly cold water, and lost love. Only 124 pages, but not a quick read. The stories have followed me and reappeared in unexpectedly in my thoughts.

[bale_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am not a big fan of short stories. I often feel they are incomplete, that they end too soon. (Full disclosure, I love a good tome.) Sarah Hall's work is different. Whatever the length of her story, or subject matter, each piece - each phrase - is complete. Her words work together like an exquisite piece of art. Line by line, story by story, one feels ultra satisfied and powerfully moved, such is the quality of her writing. Hall is truly a master of the written word.

[duffdaddy-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I won this book from the Early Reviewers giveaway on LibraryThing. I've read other collections of stories by Sarah Hall and have always been impressed. Sudden Traveler was no different. Though I didn't necessarily like all the stories in the collection, I appreciated her skill as a writer in all the stories. Her choice of similes and metaphors is fresh and dead-on accurate. My favorites included The Women the Book Read, The Grotesques, Orton and Sudden Traveler. In TWTBR, I particularly appreciated the way Hall led me to believe the story was about an ex-lover. I was suddenly shocked by the revelation of who the object of the narrator's obsession was. In Orton, I was made uncomfortable (in a good way) thinking about having to make that decision for myself. Hall's descriptive similes in ST were at their best. Overall, I would recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys a well-written story that will make you think. Nice job, Sarah!

[blbera · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This lovely collection of stories by Sarah Hall is beautifully written. Hall creates a vivid sense of place, whether it's an enchanted forest or a rain-soaked cemetery. The stories are mostly about women: mothers, daughters, widows. My favorite one, the titular story, is about a young woman sitting in a car in the rain, watching her father and brother clear an area for her mother's grave. Wondering who will attend her funeral when she dies, "You do not understand yet, who you will lose, who you will become, who will arrive. We are, all of us, sudden travelers in the world, blind, passing each other, reaching out, missing, sometimes taking hold." Whether the women are passing by or taking hold, they all have memorable stories.

[ireneattolia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

short story collections are more often than not a mixed bag, and this was the case here. the writing was pleasant enough, but several of the stories left me wanting more.

[mattdocmartin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

absolutely not my cup of tea. Descriptive text felt all over the place, and stories that seemed to drag on with no real meaning. Warning to people: A LOT of these stories have VERY depressing themes. I do give it credit for being very female focused.. The cover is beautiful, so there is that.

[christiana5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this collection of short stories from the Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review. I'm not a big reader of short stories, so I'll caveat my review with that - I tend toward bigger books. These were all interesting glimpses into various lives, mostly of women. There was an overarching tone of darkness/death to many of them, though I didn't find it particularly depressing - more thought-provoking. Some were confusing and difficult to follow. I liked Orton the best.

[wickabod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's always trick or treat when you dip into a collection of Sarah Hall's stories: you're never quite sure what you'll get.These stories -- like all her stories -- are smart and edgy and unpredictable. She never lets you relax and her stories always take you to unexpected places, and I like that. Her stories are dark and unsettling, and often very funny indeed. Not all of the stories were entirely successful for me, but each one had strong writing and an unexpected delight or two. "M" and the title story were my favorites.All in all, a fine collection. Recommended.

[danfango-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't think I have ever given a book one star, so Sudden Traveler gets the first one. This was awful. Mumbo jumbo stream of consciousness. Made no sense. What's the point of writing this book? Yes, at times you could sense a certain mood, and then it just disappeared. Poof.

[wevans-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sarah Hall's prose is heady and intelligent. These dense stories feel restless, always in motion, internal or external. The opening story, "M," is a standout - inexorably drawing the reader deeper into its uncomfortable darkness, without one wasted word. This collection burns with a fierce, persistent light of righteous anger and uncompromising empathy for its characters.

[thriftyserendipity · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think I was expecting a little more out of this book of short stories. I like the strong female characters and the diversity in the stories but I feel it was lacking somewhere. Overall a decent read.

[phoenixcomet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sarah Hall's collection of 7 short stories features different levels of female empowerment through life, death and love. The story "Orton" stands out. Other stories such as "Who Pays?" I would not have understood without re-reading it, but once I did I realized how great it was. But the stories are short, the prose engaging and if you pay attention, totally worth the read.

[mykl8s · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Seven stories, each one a read. Hall shows she is a slave to no genre, with some tales so real and believable, some fantastic and wonderful, some confusing, mysterious, open to interpretation. This is a small book, so I decided to read slowly, savor each one. That did not happen - I couldn't put the book down. Savoring had to wait for the second reading.

[gailnyoka · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When we inhabit these stories, we are sudden travelers through time, through depths of emotion, through the beauty of language. In this collection, there are lines to take your breath away. Each story is a flight of imagination, a surprise.

[alwright1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sarah Hall's Sudden Traveler features one of my favorite things about short stories: writing that can set you down in the middle of a place, or a person, or a mood and connect you to the essential in a matter of sentences. While some of my favorite stories in this collection were mythic in tone, most were grounded in the personal. Feelings of separation or detachment permeate the collection, exploring the individual in relationships, mostly in times of leave-taking. While I appreciated the fantastical elements and the strong writing, there was a time or two when an ending was so ambiguous that I felt I must have not followed the plot, and went back to see what I had missed, only to find I still didn't have enough clues to understand. However, the collection finished strong with the excellent title piece and poem of a bed time story for grown up girls.

[gbelik_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I can’t say I enjoyed these short stories. With the first story “M”, I kept waiting for a surge of understanding, which never came. With several others, I felt I was waiting for something to happen and resolve the whole, but was disappointed. I think maybe these stories were just a little too literary for me