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
“August” picks up the thread from 1959’s “Travellers Must Be Content” (a story which was also collected in The Cost of Living/Going Ashore). Just as time has passed between publications, time has passed for Bonnie and her daughter, Flor, too. The stories read like bookends, all-of-a-piece, but occupying
In his introduction to Mavis Gallant’s Paris Stories (2002), Michael Ondaatje describes her Europe as a place of “shipwrecks” (a recurring word in this collection, he notes). Her characters are “permanent wanderers”, often from Canada and Eastern Europe, and not always from or in Paris, but Mavis Gallant
Adichie, Colford, Ez-Eldin, Gallant, and Hurst Short Stories in April, May, June Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, 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.
“‘Newborn, they’ve got these huge peckers,’ said Mr. Fenton. ‘I mean, really developed.’” When it comes to writing about Mavis Gallant’s short stories, I often want to begin with their first sentences. Sometimes there is such a swell of emotion at the story’s end, a marvelling at how entire
