How to get Fired

Evana Belich’s collection of stories gives a voice to what is usually quietly but deeply felt: the clumsily transcendent process of moving on. How To Get Fired weaves the stories of many characters together in intricate ways. They’re not necessarily stories of firings, but rather tales of endings. Some endings are escapes and some are, of course, traps. . . it’s a relief to revisit some of the characters we come to care about, or even the ones we dislike. . . . they’re characters that stay with you long afterwards. That’s the tantalising aspect of Belich’s stories; engaging with these people for a short moment in their lives is a series of loving and letting go. Endings already begun. How To Get Fired is beautifully written, full of astute observation, delicious turns of phrase and Belich’s piercing eye for detail. It’s in turns funny and bleak, wistful with a sharp edge. It’s deeply perceptive but gentle towards the failings of its inhabitants. Belich has created something very real, something that expresses the battle between deepest yearnings of ordinary souls and the callous power of work and social expectations. She captures how tethered we are to the lives we are conditioned to; with kindness she reveals the flaws that doom us. The stories uncover the inhumanity of power and conformity, the trap of the mapped path, the sometimes salvationary apocalypse of having a breakdown.

Ruth Spencer, Kete

The collection is adept at evoking the mundanity and pettiness of office life and politics and the doomed attempts to transcend them. It plays with business jargon and buzzwords, incorporating them in ways that undercut their glib meanings: "learnings", "positive outcomes", "daily growth registers". In one story, the team leader wears "his placeholder expression". . . What elevates these stories about disempowered, dissatisfied ordinary people are the characters' pitch-perfect voices: colloquial, engaging and pithy. Their vivid and sometimes desperate inner lives are mercilessly exposed. . . . Publishers are often reluctant to take a punt on a short-story collection they can be a tough sell. It's a testament to the freshness of the writing that Penguin has backed Belich's stories. With this debut collection, the author joins the ranks of unflinching story writers such as Airini Beautrais, Saba Sams and Wendy Erskine.

Sue Reidy, NZ LIstener

It's hilarious!

Kim Hill, Saturday Morning, Radio NZ

‘I choose to be exhilarated by the gift of failure.’ From this pithy and provocative first line in Evana Bellich’s [sic] short story collection, How to Get Fired, I was enthralled. Perceptive, fresh, wonderfully detailed, sometimes heart-rending and, at times, so funny I laughed out loud. . . . Part of what makes these stories so engaging is the way in which Bellich recreates characters who are familiar to us . . . The details which surround and embellish these characters are vivid and arresting, pitched perfectly to imply and reveal . . .Another strength is Bellich’s skill with dialogue; colloquial and entirely authentic, the reader both smiles and cringes. I loved the playful use of catchwords; positive outcomes, learnings, growth outcomes. Bellich vividly reveals the inner life of her characters as they navigate the politics of their workplaces and the mundanity, dissatisfactions and small joys of recognisable lives. This is a wonderful collection, unyielding in its revelations yet also warmly endorsing the marvels of the familiar, the identifiable, the everyday. Buy. Read. Enjoy.

Paddy Richardson, NZ Booklovers

The tone is acerbically comic and ruthlessly observational. No one escapes this author's steely gaze. Belich writes about modern life as it really is – crowded with so much cognitive junk. There are sales targets for useless products to be met, the emotional labour involved in keeping bosses happy, and explosive Christmases where years of repressed stress come to the fore. If you have enjoyed quirky workplace fiction such as Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job, by Kikuko Tsumura and Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, then you will love How to Get Fired.

Chris Saliba, North Melbourne Books

I loved this cleverly linked short story collection! It’s a biting critique of the absurdities of work life and how we maintain our humanity (or don’t) inside the bizarre systems it creates. Many collections start with a bang and peter out, but this one builds and sustains its momentum to the very end. There’s a beautiful array of scenarios and characters, whose triumphs and failings are portrayed with such candour and compassion that you’re left with a glorious ache in the chest. A fresh, fun, moving collection.

Bel, Scorpio Books

This is a book of short stories that are absolutely brilliant . . . astute observation of human behaviour . . . it's also funny, there's wonderful moments . . . the links are marvellous . . . there are moments of epiphany . . . very satisfying and extremely clever.

Carole Beu, Radio NZ