About the Book

“[Hall is] beloved by readers for her gorgeous lyricism and ability to delve into unexpected and illuminating tales of what it means to be human." -- Stylist (UK) 

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.

Critical Praise

"If you’re one of those readers who resist short stories, then the title tale in this collection might just convince you otherwise … This meditation on attachment and mortality is at once elemental and polished, compressed and expansive....Hall is a writer at the top of her game." — Mail on Sunday

"[Hall is] beloved by readers for her gorgeous lyricism and ability to delve into unexpected and illuminating tales of what it means to be human … Take each story one by one and revel in Hall’s unique voice." — Stylist (UK)

The writing is luminous from the first page...Slipping seamlessly between fantasy and reality, [SUDDEN TRAVELER] is an ambitious, powerful and, at times, deeply unsettling book." — Observer (UK)

"Written in a poetic prose and veering into fantasy, [Sarah Hall’s]  fluent new collection SUDDEN TRAVELER shows her sensational trademark themes of sexuality and mortality in various shapeshifting combinations … vividly done and never less than readable, it is all a heady and viable mix of visceral and slick." — Sunday Times (London)

"The third collection from one of the finest writers of short stories in English spans grief, parenthood and women’s agency … and rewards rereading." — Financial Times, Books of the Year

"Queen of dark short fiction Sarah Hall brought us more expertly turned tales of sex, death and danger in Sudden Traveller." — Guardian, Best Fiction of 2019

"Hall’s writing is, as ever, arresting, polished, charged with imagery, luscious and electric. Reading her in Sudden Traveller is like watching a fireworks display.... Always on display is a sense of concentrated, spiky, efficient power." — Times Literary Supplement (London)

"To enter into a world created by Sarah Hall is to step into a landscape that is feral and alive....The seven stories in SUDDEN TRAVELER merit savoring slowly: several of them reward rereading. Hall’s prose is briny and sensual....Her lyricism....reveals the influence of James Salter, but it’s a voice, fierce and unapologetic, uniquely her own." — Financial Times

"It’s hard to believe that Sudden Traveler is only Sarah Hall’s third short fiction collection. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize as a novelist, Hall seems to have made the short story genre explicitly her own....Altered states very much continue to be Hall’s theme in this new book[, her] most personal and beautiful work yet." — New Statesman

"[Hall's] greatest gift is, through a blend of the carnal and the cerebral, to invoke a physical response, something atavistic, in the reader." — Spectator (UK)

"With their dark sensuality, Sarah Hall’s magnificent stories have always had an unsettling quality, but her new collection, Sudden Traveler, is a particularly slinking, crepuscular beast." — Daily Telegraph (London)

"Disorienting, existential, and yearning ." — Booklist Online

"Some of the best short fiction this year has to offer." — women.com

"Sarah Hall is one of our most influential short story writers. Echoes of her dark magic realism, eco-apocalyptic landscapes, coolly sexual heroines and coiled, restrained, blackly ironic narrative voices are everywhere in the work of emerging writers." — Guardian

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780062959232
• ISBN 10: 0062959239
• Imprint: Mariner Books
• On Sale: 11/10/2020
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 0.320 in (d)
• Pages: 144
• List Price: $16.99
• BISAC1 : FICTION / Literary
• BISAC2 : FICTION / Short Stories (single author)
• BISAC3 : FICTION / Magical Realism