Girl, Balancing & Other Stories

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What to expect

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Girl, Balancing & Other Stories, by Helen Dunmore, read by Emilia Fox, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Juliet Stevenson.

Haunting, uplifting, beautiful: the final work from Helen Dunmore

Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their lives:

A girl alone, stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems.

Two women from very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship.

A young man picks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life.

A woman imprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way.

This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore’s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her listeners.

Critics Review

  • This posthumous collection from the much-loved author, focusing on motherhood, war and women under threat, is an act of tender commemoration… there are new departures on the themes that preoccupied Dunmore: childhood, motherhood, war, friendship, forgotten lives.

    Guardian – Book of the Week

  • Wisdom and wit shine out from Helen Dunmore’s last stories…The simplicity of the writing is deceptive; Dunmore manages to say a lot about families, about the mystery of creativity, and the shock of seeing someone you thought you knew in a new light.

    The Times

  • Dunmore’s gift for period detail combines with the respect she has for her characters’ inner lives to produce an effect that is oddly moving.

    Sunday Times

  • Dunmore’s love of history glints and gleams in this elegant, posthumous collection

    The Daily Mail

  • Whether musing on a portrait of John Donne or a friendship between two widows, the late, much missed Dunmore always has something worth saying

    Mail on Sunday, Event – Summer Reads

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