Dedicated short story writers make choices with every sentence. Short stories aren’t novels that ended too soon. They’re not short because there’s a paper shortage or a deadline. Short fiction is short on purpose. So, when a writer like Mavis Gallant chooses her words, it’s a deliberate process. Last
An airport is as good as a train for setting a story in, when that story is about change. So here we are, in the Helsinki airport for this very short, titular story by Mavis Gallant. (And can I just say: how wonderful is the ‘net for locating images,
“The Circus” considers the tensions between expectations and reality. Often, when that theme emerges in a Mavis Gallant story, the focus is a relationship. That is true of “The Circus” as well. On the surface, this story appears to be about Laurie’s expectations about the circus. He has seen
For those who haven’t yet, in the time I’ve been chatting about Mavis Gallant’s stories, read the opening of a story – To give you a sense of all that she encapsulates in a small space, the way she creates a world in a little-more-than-a-dozen-pages-long work – Here
In other Mavis Gallant stories, we have met characters whose hold on life is more tenacious than expected. In “The Remission” (1979), for instance. Everyone has made plans with an exit in mind, but nothing goes as expected. And in “The End of the World” (1967), we have a
