Gallant, Gould, Jolley, Kenan, Proulx, and Walker Short Stories in July, August, and September Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to four favourite writers and also explored two new-to-me story writers.
My experience reading David Bergen runs the gamut. When I first read The Time in Between, I felt disengaged from the story. Years later, stuck in a waiting room with The Matter with Morris (2010), I recognized layers to his storytelling which I’d missed before. With The Age of
For readers who have met Steven first in “Let it Pass” and then, much younger, in “In a War”, it would have been doubly significant to come across this passage, in a story about the Steven-between-youth-and-age: “In plain terms, this is not a recollection but the memory of
In a passage near the end of “Let It Pass”, Steven observes the precarious nature of memory. He openly acknowledges its fallibility: “I have probably altered my recollection of that moment, changed its shape, refined it, as I still sometimes will tinker with shreds of a dream.” So when
What I know now, that I didn’t know when I started to read my final three Gallant works in Montreal Stories is that “Let It Pass”, “In a War”, and “The Concert Party” are a sequence of stories. When I had a half hour to read on a weekend
