In a passage near the end of “Let It Pass”, Steven observes the precarious nature of memory. He openly acknowledges its fallibility: “I have probably altered my recollection of that moment, changed its shape, refined it, as I still sometimes will tinker with shreds of a dream.” So when
What I know now, that I didn’t know when I started to read my final three Gallant works in Montreal Stories is that “Let It Pass”, “In a War”, and “The Concert Party” are a sequence of stories. When I had a half hour to read on a weekend
The air is getting cooler, the leaves are starting to fall, the prizelists are out, and it's time to start thinking about what MARM goodies we're going to read this year. Margaret Atwood Reading Month is hosted by me and Naomi at Consumed by Ink, inspired by decades of
No need to debate the significance of the Oxford comma here—there’s no ‘and’ to stir the pot. One could easily mis-identify the story and add the conjunction. But this is not a story about a set of accessories. It is about a series of another sort. A series of
Many of the letters in A Memoir of Friendship are about writing and reading, books and manuscripts; Blanche Howard and Carol Shields swapped book recommendations and writing frustrations and philosophies alongside the everyday stuff and nonsense of life. In 1993, Blanche wrote to Carol Shields, two years after their
