>> Read all Stella's reviews.

Granta 158: In the Family edited by Sigrid Rausing  {Reviewed by STELLA} Granta was a publication which I would seek out in the second-hand bookshop when I was a student. It didn’t matter if it was a recent edition or not, for without fail it would be interesting and introduce me to new writers. Its thematic formula made some issues more appealing than others, but with its combination of fiction, non-fiction and photo essays it was always worth investigating. The latest Granta — Issue 158 — is titled In the Family. It opens with a story from Fatima Bhutto about her pregnant dog during the pandemic when they escaped the city to sit out the worst of the unfolding events of 2020. The vet can’t see her dog unless it’s an emergency. In this piece of writing Bhutto’s experience of helplessness leads her to reflect on the connection between animals and humans. As she explores this she delves into her own family connections (many of her family members have met violent deaths, including her father), to consider the question — what is a good life? Entitled 'The Hour of the Wolf', its nuanced texture keeps giving at an intimate level, is philosophical, draws on political history, and is also right in the moment. It's a clever essay that can hold so much in a few pages. Following on from this is an excerpt from Pure Colour by the excellent Shelia Heti. In this passage, the narrator reflects on a father’s death: the kaleidoscope of emotions, the release, the ambivalence, relief and sadness. “His spirit was sly as a fox, the way it snuck into her — the way it stealthily, like a fox, moved into her. She can still feel it there. sometimes, sneaking about. It is a great joy to have his spirit inside her, like the brightest and youngest fox!”  If you know Heti’s work, you will appreciate this. She never fails to take you somewhere unexpected without leaving you behind. Julie Hecht’s 'The Emperor Concerto' is a sharp story about siblings, mother/daughter relationships, and the tang of memory laced with little pinpricks that sits just right. I haven’t read anything by Hecht before, so here’s my discovery and someone I’ll be following up on. And this is what makes a literary journal like Granta so relevant and excellent. There’s something familiar and always something new. The writing is varied in style and structure, so you can dip in and dip out as your mood takes you. And if you feel like a visual hit, the photo essays add extra flavour. Sometimes dramatic, often quotidian, they capture moments that strike a note of right here, right now — a social document which leaves you to make the connections. Worth picking up, always.