The First Person and Other Stories

Blurb

The First Person and Other Stories is a short story collection by Scottish Booker-shortlisted author Ali Smith, first published in 2008.
It contains 12 stories :-
"True Short Story" A discussion between two men in a cafe discussing the relative merits of novels and short stories is overheard. The narrator rings a friend and continues the argument quoting the views of various authors and the story of Echo and Narcissus from Greek mythology.
"The Child" A beautiful baby appears in the narrators shopping trolley; seemingly innocent it turns out to be a foul-mouthed misogynist.
"Present" A disjointed conversation between a barmaid, a man at the bar and the narrator
"The Third Person" which describes differing 'beguiling scenarios' for a relationship
"Fidelio and Bess" Beethoven's opera Fidelio and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess are blended together to describe an apparently doomed love affair between two women
"The History of History" in which a schoolgirl struggles to do her history homework while her mother has a nervous breakdown
"No Exit" The narrator watches a woman leave a cinema auditorium via the fire escape and become apparently trapped in the stairwell