This is the shortest in the cycle of Carette family stories, available to read online, with a short introduction by Lynne Tillman, on the Center for Fiction’s website. It’s one of their “model stories”—for good reason. It’s concise, yet still manages to highlight so many of Gallant’s trademarks: acute
Having published one hundred and sixteen stories in The New Yorker, Mavis Gallant’s regular readers would have had to wait from April 15 until July 8 in 1985, to learn how life has been for the Carette sisters. The story opens like this: “The family’s experience of Raymond was
In the previous story, Berthe and Marie were six and four years old, but now they are twenty-two and twenty, when the Carette family is moving house once again. Having moved around the same neighbourhood every few seasons, they and their mother are signing a two-year lease for the
Aleichem, Gallant, Gardam, Keret, and Mutonji Short Stories in January, February and March Whether in a borrowed collection or from my own shelves, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to two favourite writers and also explored three new-to-me story writers.
As a sharp observer and as a chronicler of wartime and revolutionary foment, there are a lot of good and serious reasons to read Mavis Gallant: she is also wickedly funny. The humour in this story’s title is only accessible to readers after we have finished reading. But nevermind,
