As soon as I met Henri Grippes, I felt like I knew him. He reminded me of Charles Filandreux in “Siegfried’s Memoirs” (in Coming Ashore). Filandreux is a writer, all tied up in knots at the idea of writing a review he “would undoubtedly be requested to write”. Except
Imagine a ribbon. Pinch a loop of it between your index finger and thumb. The small piece you grasp is where the story begins and ends, while in between recounting “the year of shocks”. We meet the Clairvoie family when son Luc has failed his course of study. Spectacularly
We have to assume that Speck came first, with “Speck’s Idea” published in 1979. “Overhead in a Balloon” was published five years later (both stories in the pages of “The New Yorker”, where the majority of Mavis Gallant’s stories appeared before they were bound into collections). So we have
“To take up residence in the mind of Mavis Gallant, as one does in reading her stories, is a privilege and delight,” writes Phyllis Rose, to begin her review of Overhead in a Balloon in the March 18, 1987 issue of The New Yorker. She speaks of Gallant’s ability
At first it is surprising. To come across the word ‘defenestration’ in a Mavis Gallant story. Often these are inward-looking stories, detailed and expansive glimpses into the interior lives of quiet – and often solitary – characters. Someone drives too quickly or protests the contents of a sermon, someone
