I have to confess that The Crying Room is not the sort of volume I would ever have read if I hadn't received an unsolicited review copy. I am glad I did, however. Quasi-poetic, surrealist short stories are all too easily mishandled, but McLeod manages to avoid both pretension and aimlessness. Underneath the nightmarish dream-world surface of his stories there is always a coherent reality, though the reader must sometimes work to puzzle it out (and sometimes it is more disturbing than the dreams). Death and separation and dysfunctional relationships are among the most prominent themes. While this is not the sort of thing you would want to read too much of (especially as the rather uniform style could easily become monotonous), at fifteen stories and 130 pages The Crying Room is a good length.

December 1995

Related reviews:

- more short fiction
- books published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press