A most appropriate title, a taste of the delights in store. Short
stories are often regarded as a bit of practice for the novel,
rather than fine art in their own right. As here, though anyone
expecting beginning, middle and end will find the author rather
subversive. The title story, for example, teems with characters,
some hugging one line to themselves, but a tale is told in that
single sentence. Others resemble essays while many recall schoolday
composition, as if the starting point was the teacher's
instruction: Keys, or Weather, or Mirrors, whence they meander in
distinctly surreal directions. Characters may be brought together
for a happy ending or flounder in misunderstandings, like the
beleaguered author, Edith-Esther, and her biographer. Mostly, these
fabulous flights of fantasy contain wit and lyricism to rival
Colette, and for those who haven't yet got round to the novels,
serve as an intriguing introduction. (Kirkus UK)
All over town people are putting on their costumes; X slips into his wife’ s lace-trimmed night gown and waltzes around his bedroom; Tamara is no longer the dull clerk receptionist when she wears that yellow skirt, she evolves into a stunning creature exuding passion and vitality. In Weather a couple’s life is thrown into utter chaos when The National Association of Metereorologists go on strike – what will they wear? what will they eat? In Soup du Jour a young boy contemplates life, the cracks in the pavement and his mother’s soup-making.
Each story encapsulates the human spirit, its diversities, complexities and absurdities. Shields observes with compassion the carnival that goes on in each of our lives and the realities that we create for ourselves. Carol Shields’ second collection of short stories celebrates the extraordinary details that are found in ordinary, everyday lives.
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