Mothering Sunday

Graham's Swift's novella, Mothering Sunday, is a magnificent read. "Swift's small fiction feels like a masterpiece" (The Guardian). And how's this for an opening sentence - one of the longest I've seen in a while. "Once upon a time, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a 'real horse', a racehorse, a thoroughbred." You will be relieved to learn that this is immediately followed by three extremely short sentences. It works. The book is beautifully written.
(Swift's recent book of short stories, England and Other Stories, is also well worth a read, although I did not connect with it as much as I did with Mothering Sunday.)