This post is published to coincide with the anniversary of the author’s death. She died in her home in Toronto on July 12, 1961, where she had written the final Jalna book, Centenary at Jalna. Even though I deliberately chose a story-order reading, over a publication-order
Danticat, Farnsworth, Gallant, Hunter, Li and Quade Short Stories in April, May and June Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to three familiar writers and also explored three new-to-me story writers. Just
It begins “It took Arnold six and a half seconds to fall five hundred feet.” And when a story begins like that, readers are engaged in a swift and brutal exercise. At first, I thought it was going to be only an exercise. Some sort of display.
Reading The Vagrants (2009) was one of those reading experiences that I couldn’t bring myself to write about. Which made me feel cowardly as I can only imagine how difficult it was to write that kind of story, to put that kind of pain into words and then rework
“Those assholes again? Nah, he said. So I knew his aunt or Elwin had done it.” Violence permeates Joe’s life. It simmers beneath the surface of every single day. But in The Round House it erupts, nearly eclipses every other aspect of life for awhile. Something happens to his
