In "Save the Reaper" and "The Children Stay" readers are directed to wonder what young children remember of their parents' shenanigans, but in this story readers inhabit Karin's perspective. Karin is certainly old enough to actively observe and contemplate the events unfolding around her (although from a girl's perspective, so
This year's Massey Lecture text begins with passion and grandiose declarations. "I have had a lifelong obsession with blood, and I'm not the only one. As both substance and symbol, blood reveals us, divides us, and unites us. We care about blood, because it spills literally and figuratively into every
As with the earlier stories in this collection, readers are cast back in time: by thirty years in "The Children Stay". Readers find themselves on the east coast of the Island, Vancouver Island, but the exact location of the cottage is reminiscent of the way in which the Maitland River
"Daisy was barely three and could not understand what was going on." Because there is something going on. Something that Daisy, at three years old, could not understand. This is where the story begins, from a future vantage point, when 60-something Eve is looking back at the afternoon in which
One wonders if the "little bride" would have sat with the Monicas on the beach in "Jakarta". Would she, in the eyes of Kath and Sonje, inhabit the model of femininity that the Monicas represent? Or would they encourage her to join them behind the logs? McClelland & Stewart,
