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
The title of Pasha Malla’s 2015 article in The New Yorker’s Page-Turner says it all: “Too Different and Too Familiar: The Challenge of French-Canadian Literature.” Because it is a challenge to locate French-Canadian literature within the landscape of Canadian Literature, even for those of us who devote a significant
The thing about reading the third Linnet Muir story is that I know her now. At least, I feel like I do. Which is the deep appeal of a linked collection, the sense of gradual immersion. It’s the same phenomenon that pulls you back to a familiar series, a fledgling
Murakami, Boyle, Oz, Babitz, Cather and Adjei-Brenyah Short Stories in January, February and March Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to two familiar writers and also explored four new-to-me story writers.
