'From vanishing islands to talking flathead and nightmarish bushfires, Ben Walterâs visionary Tasmanian fictions are unique in the landscape of Australian writing. An unemployed man chooses only to apply for jobs advertised in The Economist; a failed mountain expedition is mocked by the dead bodies of past climbers; and a father and son travel urgently to witness the miracle of Lake Pedder emptying. In What Fear Was, Walter combines beautiful, mesmerising writing with surreal discomfort and absurdist hilarity to completely upend the idea of an Australian short story.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'A debut collection of stories surveys contemporary environmental and climate terrain.'
'I am looking for something to say about the short story as a category, something to distinguish it, and my mind alights on the word ‘fun’. Is it possible, I wonder, that the short story permits the author to play, to have fun, in a way that other forms do not? Do we tend to ignore this because the word ‘fun’ is difficult to fit into an aesthetic claim, because the concept itself seems to resist being aestheticised, its monosyllabic punchiness evoking childish play or adult condescension that dodges the analytical eye? It was just a bit of fun. Don’t you know how to have fun? This isn’t fun.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
'The “Tasmanian Gothic” may have been identified back in 1989, but it seems there’s still something haunting Tasmanian fiction. From Richard Flanagan and Carmel Bird to Danielle Wood and Robbie Arnott, Tasmanian writers continually demonstrate a bent for the fantastic. What Fear Was, a debut collection of short stories by Ben Walter, ostentatiously leans towards the uncanny.' (Introduction)
'We have learned, thank you Bertolt, that there will still be singing in the dark times. Singing such as Ben Walter’s What Fear Was, constructed within and about the metastasising climate catastrophe. It is a short story collection of particularity—most obviously about a place, Tasmania, but also about a time, the howling now.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
'I am looking for something to say about the short story as a category, something to distinguish it, and my mind alights on the word ‘fun’. Is it possible, I wonder, that the short story permits the author to play, to have fun, in a way that other forms do not? Do we tend to ignore this because the word ‘fun’ is difficult to fit into an aesthetic claim, because the concept itself seems to resist being aestheticised, its monosyllabic punchiness evoking childish play or adult condescension that dodges the analytical eye? It was just a bit of fun. Don’t you know how to have fun? This isn’t fun.' (Introduction)
