In the previous story, we have Harold’s mother reminiscing about her earlier trips to the mountains, when it was just her and her husband, Harold’s father. She observes that it was one thing to think of skiing down the slopes into town when she was a young woman; now
It seems to me that Mavis Gallant must have spent an inordinate amount of time on terraces. As places that seem associated with a view, this seems appropriate for a writer with a penchant for observation and acuity. But even while terraces seem related to looking outward – especially
Borra, Gallant, Gospodinov, Rogers and Tomine Short Stories in October, November and December Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to a favourite writer and also explored four new-to-me story writers. (I've read
On an over-cold winter morning, I was travelling northward on the subway, weary and thinking that I might rather sit than read, when I pulled out In Transit and recognized a familiar figure in the first few lines of this story: it’d been ages since I’d caught a glimpse
Flickering and Imprecise: the first words I jotted down, while reading this Mavis Gallant story. It struck me that perhaps one of the reasons that her stories have endured is that her style is uncluttered and direct: there aren’t a lot of adjectives or adverbs, so when something –
