A dozen years ago, Olive Senior's Gardening in the Tropics was on my list of favourite books for that reading year. Insomniac Press, 2007 Afterwards, I read some short stories (Discerner of Hearts is wonderful), but I lost track of her work, and hadn't even realized the extent of it
Originally published almost exactly 32 years ago, the events depicted in "Dulse" could have taken place 32 years prior and will, likely, still ring true 32 years hence. Lydia is a woman alone, not freshly alone -- for she has been divorced for nine years -- but self-consciously alone. Something
The first story in The Moons of Jupiter is a two-parter, the first originally published in "Chatelaine" and the second in "Saturday Night", in 1979. In later collections, interconnected stories were not necessarily set apart within a collection, but these two stories are exceptionally tight-knit. And because of this, with
Last summer, walking in Little Jamaica in Toronto, I picked up a copy of a community newspaper with a cover image of protesters overseas burning the cover of Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes. HarperCollins, 2007 Book burning: it's a headline-grab alright. It certainly captured this reader's attention.
Who does Rose think she is? Either the question has been asked of her, or she has asked it of herself, throughout her life. It's fitting that the final story give voice to that. It's also fitting that the reader feels the question has been half-answered in the final paragraph
