A collection of short stories
Mark Frankel is one of our most prolific competitors. His stories are consistently good and most of the time find their way on to the shortlist even if they do not make the final three. In Thirteen Types of Trolley we have a typical Frankel entry. The title and the introduction immediately grab the reader’s attention. Then again he has an eye for detail and a good ear for dialogue. The Frankel trick is to make it all relevant – to delineate character and to move the story along. One test of good dialogue is to know who is saying what without constant attribution: he said, she said, etc. Frankel does it beautifully.
John Jenkins, Writers’ Forum
1. Cry Wolf!
2. A Bottle of Chardonnay
3. Portrait of Ginevra
4. 13 Types of Trolley
5. Hemingway Slept Here
6. 25 Light Years to Vega
7. There’s Always Saturday
8. Grandma’s House
9. Detail
10. Marlowe’s Last Case
11. Cunningham's White
12. Too Late for Cheese
13. Encore!
14. Meeting Wayne Rooney
15. The Plot
16. Brotherly Love
17. Grey Gloves
18. That's the way to do it!
19. Rabbits on the Lawn
20. Showtime! (plus others...)