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Sex and Death

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In this provocative and haunting collection of short stories edited by two masters of the form, a diverse group of contemporary writers probes the nature and connection between two of the most powerful, exhilarating, and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience.

The drive for life—for survival and reproduction—and the drive for death—for violence and self-destruction—are the two dominant, instinctive urges of human behavior. These conflicting compulsions, characterized by Freud as Eros and Thanatos, are also the central themes of great literature. In Sex and Death, some of today’s most compelling writers from around the globe—Kevin Barry, Lynn Coady, Robert Drewe, Ceridwen Dovey, Damon Galgut, Petina Gappah, Sarah Hall, Peter Hobbs, Yiyun Li, Alexander MacLeod, Ben Marcus, Jon McGregor, Guadalupe Nettel, Courttia Newland, Taiye Selassie, Ali Smith, Wells Tower, Claire Vaye Watkins, Alan Warner, Clare Wigfall—explore these challenging themes with honesty, psychological acuity, brutality, tenderness, and empathy, in stories that are disquieting, illuminating, funny, and utterly dazzling.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2016

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About the author

Sarah Hall

52 books586 followers
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Sarah Hall took a degree in English and Art History at Aberystwyth University, and began to take writing seriously from the age of twenty, first as a poet, several of her poems appearing in poetry magazines, then as a fiction-writer. She took an M Litt in Creative Writing at St Andrew's University and stayed on for a year afterwards to teach on the undergraduate Creative Writing programme.

Her first novel, Haweswater, was published in 2002. It is set in the 1930s, focuses on one family - the Lightburns - and is a rural tragedy about the disintegration of a community of Cumbrian hill-framers, due to the building of a reservoir. It won several awards, including the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book).

Sarah Hall currently lives in North Carolina. Her second book, The Electric Michelangelo (2004), set in the turn-of-the-century seaside resorts of Morecambe Bay and Coney Island, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book).

The Carhullan Army (2007), won the 2007 John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 2008 Arthur C Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction.

Her latest novel is How to Paint a Dead Man (2009).

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5 stars
32 (13%)
4 stars
84 (34%)
3 stars
87 (36%)
2 stars
28 (11%)
1 star
10 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
Profile Image for Briar's Reviews.
2,068 reviews549 followers
August 11, 2019
Sex and Death is a mixed bag of stories full of, you guessed it, sex and death.

This anthology features a large array of short stories. I say it's a mixed bag because, like any set of stories, some of them are amazing and some of them don't hit as well. What I've found is that it really depends on what type of reader you are. I really enjoyed some of the stories focusing on the family structure - George and Elizabeth by Ben Marcus, Fixations by Ceridwen Dovey, and Evie by Sarah Hall. The stories had me hooked and interested and somehow left me wanting so much more out of them. I wanted entire books for those stories! They were intriguing, well written and absolutely fantastic!

To highlight my three favourites:

George and Elizabeth follows George after his father died. He's in the process of seeing a therapist and reaches out to his sister. He meets his Father's ex-half-wife and participates in some situations that he might actually need therapy for. This slice of life story is crafted so beautifully that I wanted a full length novel of this book. George and "Pattern" (Elizabeth) are unique characters with a unique relationship. I need to find more books by Ben Marcus because he is just phenomenal at writing!

Fixations by Ceridwen Dovey follows Selene after the birth of her child. The difficulties of post-partum life and having medical procedures was really interesting to follow. Hearing Selene's point of view about how the midwives think she has post-partum depression but really it's from the physical pain of the childbirth was eye opening. I couldn't pull myself away from this book! Yet again, Ceridwen Dovey has an addicting writing style!

Evie by Sarah Hall follows a romantic pair who dip into something new. Tragedy strikes during their slice of life, and a relationship will be tested. This story was just too darn short! I wanted to see the fallout of everything that was happening because Sarah managed to get me attached to these characters. It is absolutely amazing what some authors can do with their words!

All of the other stories were well written but just didn't hit me like those three did. But, that's the point of an anthology! There are many different types of stories around one topic (this one being sex and death). Honestly, the way these authors dove into mental health, sex, ambition, life, and death was truly incredible. Hats off to these guys! Despite every author having a different writing style, all of these books felt like they fit in and that they should be winning some kind of award!

Some of the stories end in tragedy, some feature happy endings and some are just... there. There are very short stories and there are longer stories. What Sarah Hall and Peter Hobbs have done is craft a beautifully arranged anthology that definitely should be in more readers' hands!

Overall, this was a marvelous read and I'm really happy I got the chance to read it! I've been staring at this book for ages while it sat on my shelf. I finally got the nerve to pick it up and devour it!

Four out of five stars! The stories ranged from one to five stars, but it'd be a shame to give it anything less than a four. As a complete set, this book stands out!!

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
Profile Image for kingdomofbookss.
8 reviews4 followers
September 1, 2017
This is the type of book that you won't be able to put down. It will make your heart ache and keep you on your toes. The stories in this book are so moving and so real. They are beautiful, tragic, sobering, brutal and each story has so much meaning packed as densely as possible into every bit of text. What I enjoy most about the stories is that they make you think, they leave the reader thinking about the undercurrents going on beneath the surface of character's actions. Beneath the story you read, there is an untold story that is not told but keeps you thinking. Most of the stories are very short, but could leave extremely impactful meaning. Every story has its own colour of contents and ends in a really satisfying manner.


This collection of stories hold true to the high standard of writing. The prose in these stories is so raw and relevant! Although all of the stories are fiction, they are all so eye-opening and mind-winding that cause the reader to just wonder how the authors even came up with this stuff.


This book contains amazing and beautiful stories that capture all types of minds. I highly recommend it to anyone who are looking for a new and fresh reading experience. This is probably a must read!
Profile Image for ☕Laura.
583 reviews166 followers
October 26, 2016
I'm not normally a huge fan of short stories. I often don't seem to "get" them. I am, however, a huge fan of Sarah Hall, and I really want to better understand the short story as a form, so I was eager to read this collection. For the most part, I really appreciated these stories. They felt largely more accessible than many I have read, and I wasn't often left with the feeling of incompleteness I often am. I am clearly too dense to fully comprehend the final story, however, and will need someone smarter than me to explain that one at some point. Overall, this is definitely one of the more enjoyable short story collections I have read. There seemed to be a lot more stories about sex than death for whatever that's worth.
Profile Image for Kelly.
251 reviews68 followers
May 22, 2018
Some are good stories others are ok. I just can't bring myself to finish it right now, I feel like it's a chore.
16 reviews14 followers
March 6, 2020
For someone that has experienced a lot of both sex and death, I was excited for this book. I love anthologies, but more of the stories in this one were misses that hits. I'm not a big fan of realistic fiction, and it seemed that a lot of these authors were trying to write hyper-realistic stories that included both sex and death in normal ways, which was not what I was looking for out of this book. Perhaps if you're a realistic fiction fan, this book is more for you.
Profile Image for Shanelle.
95 reviews
September 27, 2018
I DNF’d it. I am not usually into short stories, and these short stories were weird, which made it worse.
Profile Image for Mish Middelmann.
349 reviews6 followers
May 21, 2018
Love the topics - about the most primally important I can think of - and patchy about the implementation. There was a bit too much of what felt like fashionably modern ennui for me.

What I liked best were some short, sharp, provocative stories that really had me think again, such as the opening story where the lead character's emotional infidelity is all in her imagination - the potential lover being already dead.

There were also great "slice of life" stories - I particularly loved Petina Gappah's story at the hairdresser's in Machipisa - next door to the place I worked and partied throughout the 1980s in Highfield, Harare, Zimbabwe.

And I loved the introduction:
How hard we try not to be frightened, not to let the mind and body misbehave, not to come undone... But underneath, closer than we dare to think, is the reddish nature of our humanity, the strong meat of our anatomy. The force that drives us on, generation after generation...

Profile Image for Parmy.
39 reviews19 followers
January 15, 2022
I did not finish this book. This is a collection of short stories, I read three of them and gave up. The point of a short story is to have a moral, or some sort of reason for existing, but these have nothing. An example of this would be (spoiler warning, I suppose? Not that there can really be spoilers as there are no twists or conclusions to any of the stories that I read) the third story is about a woman who has developed an anal fissure after giving birth. The story is just a documentation of how it is difficult and painful for her to use the toilet, then in the end she gets surgery. That's it. The ending is her lying in the operating table, falling asleep due to the anaesthetic. The first two stories were just as pointless and bizarre!

Maybe I'm not smart enough to understand the point in these, or maybe this just isn't the book for me, but this is the first book I have ever given up on and I look forward to returning it to my local library.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Robert.
2,198 reviews236 followers
October 18, 2016
After the disappointing love story anthology, i didn't really feel like reading another short story collection but this one was consistent! most of the stories have a punch and are warped,, the highlight being the Ali Smith one. A solid collection to dip in.
Profile Image for Rebecca Rosenblum.
Author 11 books60 followers
February 21, 2017
I rarely bother to star-rate books anymore--it's so hard to get it right--but this one's easy. Almost every piece is a highlight of form, style, and substance, and even the pieces I didn't personally love I admired. An anthology of the highest caliber, and a joy to read.
Profile Image for Marina Sofia.
1,252 reviews289 followers
November 30, 2016
Eclectic, diverse, something for all tastes - a rich collection of short stories about the two most fundamental subjects in our lives.
Profile Image for Chelsea.
94 reviews1 follower
May 20, 2019
Some are good, some are just plainly confusing. Not sure it was me or the story itself.
Profile Image for Nick.
876 reviews15 followers
January 11, 2018

This is a fantastic collection of short stories by Canadian and international authors that wasn't really what I was looking for but more than made up for it!

4.5 Stars














My favourites are noted below. Expand the spoilers if you've read it or don't mind further losing the element of surprise. Also, be warned that parts of this book, and this review, are 'rated R'.



'George and Elizabeth' -- Ben Marcus

Well-written, witty, surprising.





'Fixations' -- Ceridwen Dovey

Great! Love the opening, so witty and Australian too. The ending is ... ok.





'The Postcard' -- Wells Tower

Sophisticated writing, metaphors and word-play about an awkward affair in Amsterdam involving an older famous woman and a younger man.





'Evie' -- Sarah Hall

A woman's personality begins changing rapidly, dramatically, and erotically...





'Where hast thou been' -- Jon McGregor

Nice one! God is a character. Fun, 'stream-of-consciousness-style' tale about a 22 year old virgin male who simply must get laid, and some adventures.





'10 Item Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale' -- Claire Vaye Watkins

A woman, and a couple, have a baby.





'Reversible' -- Courttia Newland

I don't want to spoil this one at all. Just read it. Short and sweet.



'The news of her death' -- Petina Gappah

A British/Nigerian woman meets a cast of gossipy characters in a Nigerian beauty salon. Fun! Would make a nice short play.



'Visitation' -- Damon Galgut

A man on a train in South Africa, escaping his life and an incident in Cape Town. Page-turning.



'Frank's Last Days' -- Guadalupe Nettel (Translated by Rosalind Harvey)

In Mexico, a college girl accidentally finds her long-lost, mysterious uncle, the black sheep of the family.



'Porto Baso Scale Modellers' -- Alan Warner

Unique, quirky, darkly funny.



'Fin' -- Lynn Coady

A young couple move into a wonderful new house, and the man promptly breaks them up and leaves. The woman's situation is described in brilliant detail.





'Brunhilda in Love' -- Taiye Selasi

Brunhilda fantasizes about her non-sexual husband having an affair with his gay male trainer...



'The Closing Date' -- Alexander MacLeod

A(nother) young couple buy their dream house in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but thee thee thee that's not all folks.





'The Fortune Fish' -- Clare Wigall

A middle-aged man from San Francisco runs into an old lover from the hippie days.


Profile Image for Peter K .
261 reviews2 followers
January 1, 2022
Like any collection of short stories, some are going to grab the reader's attention more than others and this was the case with this collection for me.

Having just read and really enjoyed a work of Sarah Hall I had high hopes for this book particularly given the elemental subject matter.

There were a small number of excellent stories here, those by Sarah Hall herself and Jon McGregor being the ones the stood out for me.

A number of them never really blossomed for me , didn't really develop, felt a little too short.
Profile Image for Lucy  Olivia.
362 reviews1 follower
October 22, 2021
Some of those short stories were fantastic and some were positively average, so I think 4* overall is fair. My fave was Dr Pacific.
Profile Image for Anne Logan.
600 reviews
July 14, 2017

All my reviews can be found at ivereadthis.com

I find short story collections extremely hard to review, but this is the case even more so when the collection of stories is an anthology made up of various authors because there is such a huge span of talent and writing throughout. Sex and Death, edited by Sarah Hall and Peter Hobbs is an incredibly varied grouping of stories all about how we come into this world, and how we go out. Yes, the topics are somewhat similar, but each artist has their own take on what sex and death means (as they rightly should) so we’ve got a mixed bag of treats with this one. We’ve got stories about loved ones recently deceased, a woman developing a sex addiction because of a growing tumor in her brain, even a tale of a new mom agonizing over a recently developed anal fissure shortly after her baby’s birth (!!!). There is literally, something for everyone.



My favourite story was oddly titled “Porto Baso Scale Modellers” by Alan Warner, which was one of the most clever and hilarious things I have read in some time. It’s about a group of middle aged men who take their hobby of assembling miniature models of planes very seriously, and a gorgeous, sex-addicted woman joins their group because she has a remarkable talent for their nerdy little endeavor. I could read this story over and over again I loved it so much. And many other stories were very well-written, “The Postcard” by Wells Tower in particular had some beautiful turns of phrase, this one stuck out for me:

“Still, she had wished she had not heard the story, which was like a giant crystal chandelier Clement had put into her hands with instructions to never set it down” (p. 70).

Despite the above stories mentioned, I can’t say I really loved this book. Many of the stories were unremarkable, things I just wanted to get through until I was done the book. I really enjoyed a few of the stories, and disliked or was bored by many others. Even the Canadian contributions to this international collection let me down, which I’m ashamed to write, but would feel untruthful if I didn’t mention.

Many people shy away from short story collections, and now I think I see why. Once you’ve finished reading all the stories, you don’t get the satisfaction of having completed a novel, even if you didn’t really like it. I don’t want to say reading this was a waste of time because I discovered some authors I would have never know about, but I think the collection could have done with a more discerning edit.
Profile Image for Nick Wilson.
24 reviews6 followers
April 17, 2020
An excellent collection of stories. Sarah Hall’s story Evie was the stand out for me.
Profile Image for Ted Curtis.
Author 12 books18 followers
February 15, 2020
I have to admit that I bought Sex & Death more or less in error, thinking it to be a new collection of short stories from Sarah Hall; it isn’t, it’s a collection comprising a wide range of authors, and edited by her and Peter Hobbs, whose own story, the slightly surreal In the Reactor, is a standout contribution. Hall’s tale here, the disturbing Evie, I eventually worked out I’d read before in her previous collection Madame Zero (though the notes tell me that it also appeared in The Times), but it was well worth a second visit. All said then, this is an excellent collection, and the best themed one I’ve come across in a while.

Despite the slightly restrictive scope given by any anthology with a specific focus, Sex & Death manages to bounce around a wide range of settings, from the urban reversal of a fatal police shooting in Courttia Newland’s Reversible, to the serial killer next door in Alexander MacLeod’s The Closing Date, to gossip in a Nigerian hairdressing salon in Petina Gappah’s The News of Her Death. It starts out very strongly with Robert Drewe’s thoughtful and poetic Dr. Pacific, and ends just as well with Kevin Barry’s Toronto and the State of Grace and Ali Smith’s Metaphysical - which I enjoyed immensely, despite being off maggots ever since Doctor Who and the Green Death in 1973 - and you might think from this that there would be a lot of filler sandwiched in between its 316 pages, but never was there any point at which I wanted to skip a few pages to the next story, nor a time when I stretched and yawned and put it down, picking up something more pulpy and easier to consume. That said, it being an anthology of terse tales, it’s easy to dip in and out of, or perfect for a longish bus or train journey, or a flight; or, like me, you could sit in a battered old Ikea chair, looking out through grimy unwashed windows onto a grey park on a soulless weekend afternoon, unable to sit at your writing desk because of the sudden and painful onset of sciatica, the subject matter causing you to think long and hard about what the hell you’re doing and how you got here. Sex and Death, four stars.
Profile Image for Han Whiteoak.
Author 7 books7 followers
December 17, 2017
In the Reactor by Peter Hobbs was bizarre but compelling. I never did figure out why the narrator was looking after a fake nuclear power plant, or who the people were who communicated with him via email, but that didn't matter because I enjoyed his slightly odd personality so much.

Many of the stories were disturbing but very good, such as Evie, the story of a woman who undergoes a sudden personality shift, and Fortune Fish, where two former lovers meet at a party and look back at an incident they remember very differently. I thought Fixations was a very honest portrayal of how physical illness can distance an individual from the world. Porto Baso Scale Modellers was entertaining, although by that time I was getting a little tired of hypersexual female characters.

Overall, a fantastic collection.
Profile Image for Ricky.
4 reviews1 follower
August 22, 2019
George and Elizabeth - Ben Marcus
Fixations - Ceridwen Dovey
The Postcard - Wells Tower
Evie - Sarah Hall
The Days After Love - Yiyun Li
Where Hast Thou Been - Jon McGregor
Frank's Last Days - Guadalupe Nettel
Fin - Lynn Coady
The Closing Date - Alexander MacLeod
The Fortune Fish - Clare Wigfall
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Sarah Maguire.
247 reviews2 followers
September 5, 2017
Some of the stories are very good but, as is to be expected with so many contributing authors, it is a mixed bag. Still, if you were looking (which I wasn't) for a publication to tell you about the likely effects an anal fissure or a brain tumour on the libido, this is probably the book for you.
632 reviews1 follower
April 22, 2018
colección de relatos variopinta permite conocer otros autores menos conocidos en nuestra lengua. Sobretodo el libro tiene un punto de inflexión a partir de la mitad siendo los relatos más interesantes desde ese momento.
Profile Image for el ♡.
116 reviews4 followers
September 14, 2021
it's....just not my cup of tea. it contains short stories but for me it's too much to cope. most of the time i can't really tell which is which. it got 1, 2 good stories but the rest of it is just....meh
Profile Image for Christa.
55 reviews16 followers
December 28, 2017
Excellent book! I loved all the stories and didn't want it to end. I have read it 3 times now! Recommended!
Profile Image for Lora.
281 reviews2 followers
January 8, 2022
I liked a couple of the stories.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
Profile Image for M..
2,255 reviews
August 22, 2016
An interesting collection of short stories. I won it in a contest and it was a good read.
Profile Image for Tan Clare.
661 reviews6 followers
April 20, 2017
A collection of short stories with the themes of sex and/or death to examine the exisitential issues of identity, purpose and relationships.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews

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