‘The Train’ by David Constantine

I used to read David Constantine’s short stories in a wonderful literary magazine called The Reader. Sadly, that magazine no longer exists. But remembering it, I recently decided to order a collection of David Constantine’s short stories from the wonderful Comma Press in Manchester. The stories were just good as I remembered them to be. I feel that David Constantine is a writer who has never had the recognition he deserves. The thought that struck me on reading his work anew is how cleverly he interweaves sounds through his story so that the ‘background music’ binds the disparate elements of the text together. Beautiful writing, such emotional power and yet so restrained. In particular, I love ‘The Train.’

Collected in In Another Country, Comma Press, 2015