1. Title: We Are Not the Same Anymore
Author: Chris Somerville
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Publication Date: 27 Feb 2013
ISBN: 9780702249655
rrp. $19.95 pb.
185 pp.
DROWNING, NOT WAVING
Finishing Chris Somerville’s debut story collection, We Are Not the Same Anymore, I am
overcome by a deepening sense of alienation and ennui. Somerville writes with a sparseness
of style that is deceptively simple, but rewards rereading. Passages of awkwardness and deep
introspection are punctuated by moments of wry humour, warmth and vulnerability.
Embedded within this stark textual territory, these moments make the journey easier and
more enjoyable.
Somerville wears his heart on his sleeve for most of this book. This honesty, free of
masculine posturing or bluster, is coupled with unexpected flourishes of literary skill and
technique which reveal the full breadth of his talent. Somerville deftly injects his
monochromatic landscapes with sudden flashes of colour that seem all the more vibrant in
comparison. In ‘Earthquake’, a hypochondriac father shuffles home every evening
‘accidentally spilling tissues from his jacket like he was afraid he’d lose his way back to
work’(1). Chute, in ‘Parachute’, has a ‘flat face that resembled a piece of wood worn smooth
by water’ (44). These occasional flashes of literary technique remind us that Somerville is
more than capable of complex, descriptive prose. That he chooses not to employ such devices
more often is indicative of style only, not lack of ability.
What links each of these stories is that every character is drowning somehow in a world they
don’t understand that has been created with their own unwitting complicity. Each is a visitor
in their own home, a stranger in their own life and all of them wish for a sense of belonging

2. which they know is impossible because, as one narrator notes, each is ‘the architect of most
of [their] own misery’ (50). Reminiscent of the works of Raymond Carver and Philip Roth (I
particularly enjoyed his homage to Roth’s Zuckerman in the form of his alter-ego Leonard
Beckman), Somerville’s debut short story collection is a study of alienation, acute anxiety
and loneliness told with wit, warmth and humour. Hopefully, Chris Somerville’s debut novel
is not far off.
Angie Andrewes